Long Long Long
by Knackard
Summary: Imagine if Edward had a personality and a history and wore darkwash jeans and colors sometimes, and didn't stalk Bella within an inch of her life! Imagine if Bella had actual characteristics and interests outside of obeying Edward, and knew how to breathe with her mouth closed! Now imagine that I'm saying all this in a way less snotty tone. There, you've got it. This is that story.
1. Let the Rest of the World Go By

**Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoy this story and stick with it long enough to get to the good parts. If you like what you read, or don't like it, or whatever it, please leave me a review to let me know.**

********This story is not anti-Twilight. Whatever my views of that franchise may be, this story will never become anti-Twilight. I promise.**

* * *

I expected to hate Forks. I always had before, every damn dreary month I had to spend there instead of in the sun and clear air of Phoenix. When I said goodbye to my mom, I could see the indecision behind her eyes. She was about three seconds from telling me she couldn't let me go be miserable in Forks, that she and Phil and I could figure something out that was better for everyone.

I gave her two. Then, just as she was opening her mouth, I hugged her and said, "I love you, Mom. Call me if you need anything."

"Mm-mm," she said, and I could feel her shaking her head against my shoulder. "You call me if you need anything, sweetie. I'll call you just to chat. That's the way it goes. You need to get out of there, you know I'll understand."

How could she not understand? She was the one who fled the dank old town with little baby Bella seventeen years ago. If anyone knew how the _smallness_ of the place got under your skin, it was her.

"I'll call you if I change my mind," I lied.

* * *

In 1919, it was early spring. Too early to be fresh and wild-smelling and sweet outside, too late to be glittering and austere. Edward Masen stared through a glass window that did not protect him from the gray-tinged cold outside, but what did this matter? It was long since the cold had ceased to endanger him. Now it just felt like what it was: an absence of warmth.

"Edward?"

Edward turned to the sound and, as usual, overestimated the amount of power required to move his head a few inches. He ended up whipping his head around so fast he startled Carlisle. His...his sire.

"Yes, sir?" Edward said politely, because politeness was all he could manage without wanting to rip the golden doctor's head off.

"Are you hungry, Edward?"

"Yes, sir," said Edward. What other answer could Carlisle conceivably expect? The burning never ceased. Never _would_ cease. Even now, hearing the doctor allude to it, it erupted in a solar flare of suffering that made his mouth, so wet with venom, feel dry and parched.

"Why do we not go in search of a meal? I scented a herd of reindeer, and I'm sure there are wolves following." _Perhaps if he eats, he will feel better_, thought the older vampire. He still didn't know that Edward could hear his every thought. Even though he felt a little guilty at not warning the older man that his thoughts were not as private as he assumed, Edward didn't bother to tell him; after all, he hadn't bothered to ask Edward's permission to turn him into a monster.

"Yes, sir," said Edward. He tried to stand up and walk out of the room like a normal person: one foot in front of the other, without breaking a floor tile or denting a doorknob or splintering a moulding. Carlisle smiled sadly and glided away, smoothly and quickly but not _too_ quickly, just like a real human.

Cruel.

In his anger at the impossible awfulness of vampire existence, Edward stepped down a little harder than he meant to and heard a square of ceramic crumble under his heel.

"_Damn_," he muttered.

"Did you say something, Edward?" asked Carlisle, popping his head around the door, a concerned look pasted on his face and anxious thoughts fluttering through his mind. As ever.

"No, sir," said Edward politely, grinding the tile to powder beneath his boot.

* * *

Charlie's house was exactly as I remembered it, except that I remembered it being bigger. It was small and tidy and closed-up and silent—like Charlie, in a way. And like me. After all, even though we saw each other so rarely, I was basically Charlie Swan with ovaries. Although if I grew up to be Chief of Police in a two horse town like this, I would probably have to kill myself.

Charlie even bought me a truck from his old friend Billy Black. It was an ancient Chevy that went from zero to sixty in about ten minutes. Weirdly, I loved the car right away. I couldn't handle the lush, dripping, haunted _greenness_ of everything in Forks, but the Thing—my instant nickname for it—was just like me, sort of backward and cumbersome despite its small size. Even Forks seemed more doable from behind the Thing's spotlessly-clean windshield. I could tell Charlie had cleaned it in his slow, methodical way.

Even if the car had been _more_ of a piece of crap, I still would have loved it. It didn't have a working tape-deck, but Charlie bought me an old battery-powered boombox and bolted it to the vast dashboard. I thought that was a nice touch.

"You'll have to provide your own CD's," he said sheepishly. "I don't know what music you listen to. But at least it's better than nothing, right?" His eyebrows quirked up when he said this, and for a second I saw through the terse, bumbling awkwardness we shared, and I realized that Charlie genuinely wanted me to be _happy_ here. And then I felt guilty that I wasn't even giving Forks a chance. Who knew, maybe things would be different this time around. Maybe I _could_ be happy. After all, I already loved my Thing. And hey, it was a new school year. I would be an upperclassman, the New Girl from the Big City. Maybe I would make new friends, maybe I would meet a cute boy and fall in love and kiss in the rain and do all the things that happen in movies but never seem to happen to _me_.

Maybe a lot of things.

"This is great, Dad," I said. "I really love it. It's perfect."

I prepared with great care for my first day of school. I have to admit, I was never very fashionable, but I tried my best. Anyway, Forks was so far behind the rest of the world that what was _un_fashionable for me was probably still miles ahead of this drippy town. So I put on my favorite pair of jeans—fitted but not pasted to my bony legs—and a sweater my mom bought me as a going-away gift. It was a soft, silky merino pullover in exactly the shade of electric blue that made my brown eyes pop. And it was clingy enough that I almost—almost!—looked like I had enough boob to fill out a C-cup.

I wish.

I stood and stared at myself in the full-length mirror in my room and tried to figure out if there was anything I could do to improve my appearance. I should be clear about this: I wasn't ugly. Not even plain, exactly. In the right context, I could even be pretty. I had really shiny dark brown hair, although I was unhappy with it while it grew out of a bob I'd given it at the urging of my best friend Alyssa, back in Phoenix. The bob looked cute. It made me look almost gamine, instead of just gawky. But I was growing it out as a practical measure: short hair just doesn't keep you as warm.

My eyes were nice, too: big and dark brown. But that was precisely where my assets stopped. Big brown eyes are pretty, but something is lost when you pair them with a long nose and a dinky little asymmetrical mouth and a pointy chin and sticking-out ears and stabby elbows and gangly knees. Like I said, I wasn't _unattractive_. I was just insignificant. Even my own eyes had a tendency to slide right off of my reflection and seek out something more interesting to rest upon.

"Okay," I muttered to myself. "Enough navel-gazing, Bella."

Oh, did I mention I talk to myself? I know, what a catch.

To bolster my self-esteem, I grabbed one of my favorite CDs on my way out the door. The Killers kept me company all the way to school. By the time I got there, I was dancing in my seat to _Andy, You're a Star_. I almost even felt like a star myself.

* * *

In 1919, Carlisle Cullen and Edward Masen celebrated their first Christmas together.

"I know it's not the same when you can't eat it," said Carlisle gently, looking over at the dining room table spread with rich-smelling holiday fare, "but I've gotten used to the scents of the season. Perhaps you will feel more cheerful if you have the trappings of humanity about you."

Edward said nothing, because he did not like to answer back to the man who kept him from murdering whole towns in one go. But he gritted his teeth together, hating their sharpness and the taste of venom that had long ago replaced the taste of saliva. He used to drink water and small beer and the occasional Coca-Cola, and eat bread and Christmas ham and cakes and pies and...

Well, what did it matter? There was nothing on his mind now but thirst. The happy, optimistic Edward Masen was gone, and all that was left was this monstrous thing who couldn't even write his own name without snapping the pen by accident after stabbing a hole through the paper. His body was too strong, dense with this alien strength. He could see a full mile on a clear day, but he couldn't play checkers as he used to, or put a record on the Victrola. He could run at an astonishing velocity, faster than the fastest horse or even a steam engine, but he couldn't perform the steps of a foxtrot without bringing the house down around his ears. Carlisle assured him that he would grow used to the vampire strength and speed, that his hands would remember control, and that it would happen sooner than he thought. But that was no comfort. Edward didn't want to learn to ape his former self. He wanted to be Edward Masen, living human, or he wanted to be dead.

"I have a present for you, Edward," said Carlisle tentatively. _Oh, I do hope he likes it. It could make all the difference..._ "Just yonder, in the parlor." Wordlessly Edward followed his sire into the room that still bore the marks of his latest failed attempt to read a book.

Right away, he saw it: an upright piano made of burnished glowing wood, with a deep stack of sheet music resting on the cover. Edward had let slip that in his former life he had learned to plink out a few tunes to amuse his mother during the long, lonely evenings of the war.

"Thank you," he said stiffly. Then, just to keep Carlisle from staring at him with that dreadful look on his face, he walked over and perched carefully on the seat. He misjudged the distance a bit and heard a bench-leg crackle, but nothing broke. That had to be a good sign. Was his control improving already?

"If you practice at this, it will help you to regain dexterity," said Carlisle. "I learned to rein in my strength by whittling, but the principle is the same. It will teach you to move with ease and forethought. You will feel normal again before you know it."

"Yes," said Edward as he touched one finger to the keys. It let out a ringing F-sharp, a grander and more fully-developed F-sharp than any Edward had ever heard as a human: he could hear the reverberations, rich against the mellow wood of the piano. Perhaps these new vampire ears would enable him to hear music the way he'd always _wished_ to hear it, deep in his bones.

He pulled the top sheet of music from the stack on the piano and arranged it, ripping it in only one or two places. Then, fumbling against his unnatural strength, he began to play _Let the Rest of the World Go By._

* * *

**You might be wondering why in god's name ****_I_**** of all people am publishing a Bella/Edward fic. ****_On purpose!_**** I don't know what to say to that, so I guess I'll just take a moment to explain where all this came from.**

**I wanted to like Edward, I honestly did. T****he one thing that Smeyer really nailed on the dick was the feeling of longing and urgency that accompanies growing up. She perfectly describes how it feels to have an overwhelming crush on a hot guy at school, at the age of seventeen. I mean, ****_nothing_**** feels like that. ****_Nothing_****. **

**And for a while, that was all that mattered to me: Bella loved Edward, and Smeyer wrote about those feelings so compellingly that for a while, ****_I_**** did too. And then he ruined everything by opening his big dumb mouth: "I liked music from the fifties, but not after the sixties." Edward. What is this. Explain yourself. How can you like music _up to_ but not _past_ the fifties? You can jam out to "Hound Dog" but not "Here Comes the Sun"? What kind of alien would rather hear "You Are My Sunshine" than "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"? I mean, sure, "Mack the Knife" is a great song, but it's no "Stairway to Heaven".**

**She dressed him in nonstop beige. She made him prissy and house-breaky and creepy and possessive. And she made him hate Sixties music. For god's sake, Smeyer, ****_no one on the planet_**** hates the Beatles. And if they say otherwise, they are lying or a monster.**

**At this point, I just want closure. I'm trying to make Edward lovable again. And less beige. I'll even go so far as to spruce up Bella a little bit, maybe make her less whiny and a little more fabulous. But Edward will get the full treatment. He won't be a stalker anymore. He will learn to wear sexy button-downs with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, and colors. He'll be more charming, he'll actually have fun sometimes, he'll flirt with pretty girls over chocolate malts in the Fifties and French cinema in the Seventies and basement concerts in the Nineties, but he'll never fall in love until he finds ****_her_****, The One, the girl who is nerdy enough to like not just entry-level Shakespeare but also Boccaccio and Chaucer****. He'll have depth and quirks and flaws instead of just perfect glowing liquid topaz golden mustard orbs.**

**All the most obvious plot-holes will get some spackle, a light sanding and a fresh coat of paint. I will be tracking all major changes and explaining my reasons behind them in A/Ns at the end of each chapter in which something was changed. That is part of the closure I was talking about before; explaining why certain things about the books bother me is how I am coming to terms with the books and their affect on me. The BPoV plot will be identical to the book, chapter for chapter, up until I have to change things in order to maintain the plot continuity that Smeyer herself found so easy to jettison. The EPoV, though based on the limited backstory given in the books, is all me. I don't own these characters, and I took care not to copy Smeyer's phrasing, but some of it may have crept in anyway. This story is in no way an attempt to plagiarize Smeyer's work. If you feel I am doing so, please PM me with examples, because they are definitely accidental and I will fix them. If you feel like this story is pointless and has nothing of value to offer—christ, what are you, new?**

**Enjoy.**


	2. Things Are Gonna Change Around Here

I arrived at school before any other students, and used the opportunity to check in at the front office. A big red-haired lady smiled curiously as I walked in, and as soon as she heard my name, she grinned even more widely.

"So you're Chief Swan's little girl, huh?" she said with what seemed like way too much jollity for the morning. I shrugged and nodded. "Well, here's your schedule and here's a map. Sorry you can't have more of a say in your classes, but we had to just fit you in wherever we could. This is a small school, and we don't have too many redundancies in the faculty. You're sort of at the mercy of logistics." Then she laughed, like it was a funny joke. At my old school in Phoenix, you could sign up for electives from your second semester of freshman year. But not here, in this school with only three-hundred fifty-eight students. Well, fifty-nine, now.

_Don't be bitter, don't be bitter_, I instructed myself. Hardly the way to make an impression.

"Thanks," I said, smiling as much as I could manage. I took the schedule and the map—a map? Really? What, was the school a labyrinth? Would I find the Minotaur at its center?—and headed back outside to my truck to wait for the other students to show up so I could start blending in.

About halfway through _Change Your Mind_, I looked up from the schedule which I was memorizing to see that the parking lot was almost filled. Oops. I guess I get absorbed, sometimes. Especially when I'm reading, even if I'm only reading a class schedule.

Most of the other cars were old or cheap or beat-up, like mine. I caught sight of that distinctive blue-and-white BMW logo on one of the cars, though it was obviously an old one. I could tell by the squared-off, slanting lines and the burnt-orange color that hadn't been popular since the Seventies. And there was one powder-blue Mustang, also vintage. But despite their age, the 'Stang and the BMW still looked out-of-place and expensive in this context, both of them waxed to a shine, with not a flake of rust visible anywhere. At my last school, it wasn't too weird to see a new Lexus or a shiny red Corvette in the parking-lot. Well, at least I wouldn't stand out for being poor here. That was nice.

I found my English class without trouble, but I was the last one in and I could feel everyone staring at me. Then, when I introduced myself to the balding, portly teacher, Mr. Mason, I heard whispers break out. I flushed tomato-red, I'm sure; I could feel the heat spreading up my neck. As soon as I could, I fled to the only empty seat left in the room, way at the back. Unfriendly eyeballs followed me all the way—or maybe they only seemed unfriendly because I was so unused to being stared at like that. Either way, I was more than glad to lose myself in the reading list for the semester. It was pretty standard: Bronte, Chaucer, Shakespeare. I'd already read most of it at my old school.

At the bell, a dweeby- but nice-seeming kid with pitch-black hair turned to me.

"Isabella Swan?" he said cheerfully.

"Bella," I corrected him. Better nip that whole "Isabella" thing in the bud.

"Well," he said, "I'm Eric. Where's your next class, Bella Swan?" He seemed so nice and normal and un-intimidating that I actually warmed up a little; I didn't even mind the half-dozen people who were still pinned to their seats, staring at me.

"Um," I said. "Building Four, I think?"

"I'm headed that way myself," he said, standing and picking up his books. "Want company?"

"Sure," I said gratefully. If I had company, no one would try to talk to me! I was so bad at talking to strangers.

The flaw in my plan, of course, was that now I had to talk to Eric. But he was certainly very pleasant, and so were the other students who clustered around us as we proceeded to Building Four. In fact, I felt pretty welcome. That _never_ would have happened at my giant school in Phoenix. Maybe there was a silver lining to this giant stormcloud called Forks.

As the day went by, I began to recognize more and more faces. People introduced themselves, and I tried my hardest to remember their names, but everything sort of swam together for a while. At lunchtime, a way-short girl with dark curly hair adopted me and brought me to sit with her and her friends at lunch. I forgot her name immediately, but she and her friends were all pretty vocal, and I eventually figured out that she was called Jessica. Eric sat at the table. There was also a cute Asian chick named Angela, a pretty girl with a perma-sneer named Lauren, and a few indistinguishable guys named things like Ben and Mike. I was just starting to feel comfortable when I saw _them_.

There was a table in the corner populated by gods. Seriously. They were stunning. All five of them, each a perfect specimen: three guys, two girls. One of the girls was teeny-tiny, like a pixie, with short, coal-black hair, an angular heart-shaped face and big luminous eyes. And a permanent grin that ate up all the light in the room. The other girl was a dead-ringer for Kate Winslet in _Titanic_, only—impossibly—even hotter. Honey-colored hair that straddled the line between blonde and brown, eyes rimmed with feathery black eyelashes, perfect full lips. She was cuddled up to what I had to assume was a senior, a big muscled guy with curly dark hair and a wide grin. There was a taller guy, sort of on the lanky side, who sat very upright. Even his straight golden hair seemed proper and dignified.

And the other guy...well, _wow_. They were all inhumanly beautiful, but this guy was just off the charts. He had an untidy mop of light-brown, almost reddish hair. And a Romanesque nose, and heavy, quirked eyebrows. And perfect kissable lips, and his eyes, his _eyes_... I mean, the guy was just beautiful, and I never get bowled over like that. Not ever, not even for Steve, the handsome soccer star at my old school who kissed me the previous summer when we had to spend a week at the same horseback riding camp. I guess what struck me most about this kid was how many paradoxes he impersonated: he looked younger than all his companions except the little one, boyish and innocent in a way, but his dark eyes looked like they'd seen a lot, like he was a refugee from some faraway war-torn country. He was slender and held himself carefully still, but the frenetic way he jiggled his foot made me wonder how fast he would be able to move if he needed to. His companions joked around, jostling like normal people, but he looked like he was listening to music from another planet or something. Like he didn't belong here with the rest of us mortals.

"Ah," said Jessica wryly, following my eyeline. "I see you've spotted them. Our own resident supermodels." I looked away guiltily. "Don't worry," laughed Jessica when she saw the look on my face. "They're pretty nice, actually. The big guy—that's Emmett Cullen—he organized a track team for Fucks High." Fucks High? Was that what they called this school? I still didn't know. "I guess he used to be like, a big deal at his old school. And let's see, that's his girlfriend, Rosalie Hale. She's kind of a diva, she's in a lot of stuff for this theater company in Port Angeles, but she's okay. I have a study hall with her and she's pretty cool as long as you don't get her started on like, musicals and stuff, then she'll never shut up. Umm, the short one is Alice Cullen, I'm sure she'll introduce herself soon if she hasn't already, she is like, way chipper. Her boyfriend Jasper Hale, he's Rosalie's brother, he is super-weird, I have no idea what his thing is, only I think the Hales are from Texas so I guess that must be it."

"Oh, so you're hatin' on Texas now, are ya?" drawled Mike in a goofy twang. Jessica giggled in a way that made me wonder if she and Mike were like, an item. But I couldn't be distracted for long.

"Who's the other one?" I asked impatiently, staring harder than I meant to at the perfect boy, who was toying with a pile of untouched french fries with a small smile on his face.

"Oh," she said mysteriously, "That's Edward Cullen. Don't even try. He has a major bug up his butt. The other ones are all pretty cool, but Edward barely even talks to us. Like, he's _sooo_ much better than everyone else on the planet. Ugh."

"Huh," I said. He didn't _look_ full of himself, but then again, you never can tell with beautiful people. Jessica turned back to her mating-ritual with Mike and I kept watching Edward, unaware of how rude I was being—unaware, that is, until he looked up and caught me staring. Blushing, I dropped my eyes and felt like a total rube, my heart pounding. His eyes were black as night. No, blacker, I thought, feeling poetic. His eyes would make a starless night sky look positively glowy in comparison.

Then I realized how dumb my inner monologue was getting—like, Nickelodeon-level dumb—and made an effort to rejoin the conversation. But no matter what I talked about with Jessica and her friends, my thoughts stayed firmly on Edward.

* * *

In 1921 it was impossible to sleep, but never before had Edward so desperately wanted to retreat from the world, if only for a few hours. He had been playing the piano all day. This was his sixth piano since the original Christmas present. The others had all been broken in various ways, but Edward was getting much better at controlling his strength. He was getting good enough at it that Carlisle could even go out for hours at a time, to make house-calls in the poorer homes of Ashland. Strangely, it was only since he began to see less of his sire that he began to admire the man more. He had a calming bedside manner. The people of Ashland really loved him. And Edward knew, from reading Carlisle's mind, that the doctor cared about them, too. In fact, since Carlisle still didn't know Edward could read minds, his thoughts were totally unguarded. And he rarely had a sour thought at all.

Sighing, Edward sat up. He had been lying in bed, but only because it was there; his body never got tired enough to require horizontal rest. He looked out the window at the rainy day. There was a commotion down the street—or, not a commotion, exactly, but a babble of voices.

Wait.

Edward pressed his ear to the glass. There were only two voices, but there seemed like four.

Carlisle, whispering: "Stay with me, my old friend. Please, stay with me."

Carlisle, thinking: _Dear god, do not take this one. Not this one. Just let this one live_.

A woman, moaning: "What happened? What's going on?"

The same woman, thinking: _It hurts so. I must be in hell. But it's him. What would he be doing in hell?_

And over it all, wordless panic from both.

Carlisle was sprinting, heedless of the lingering daylight that illuminated his reckless speed. And the woman was bleeding.

This thought had barely registered before Carlisle was bursting through the front door of the small house he and Edward shared.

"Edward!" he shouted. _Oh god, oh god, oh god, let her live, just let this one live_. "Edward, you need to get out of here!" There was a rustle of books being swept to the floor, a small thud against the kitchen table. "Edward, please!"

Edward jumped the steps to the first floor and ran into the kitchen, holding his breath. A woman was laid out on the table, blood running in rivulets from gashes in her wrists. Carlisle was licking venom around the wounds, but her blood washed it away before the venom could enter the bloodstream.

"What are you doing?" asked Edward stiffly, using up half his precious store of air.

"I'm sorry, Edward," said Carlisle, and the wordless panic rose to a fever pitch. "I must—I must." _I have thought of her every day for ten years_, Carlisle thought, not to Edward but to himself. _My laughing, winsome little friend. How can it have come to this pass?_

"You oughtn't do this to her," said Edward, using up the last of his air.

"I know," said Carlisle in a small voice. _But I have to. Oh, I have to_.

Edward turned on his heel and ran from the house. He was a mile away before he dared take a breath.

* * *

By the end of the lunch period, I still had no idea what the deal was with the Cullens and Hales. According to Jessica, they were all a sort of adopted family who lived with some young hotshot doctor and his wife. She couldn't explain how, even though they were adopted, they all had the exact same dark eyes, the same incredibly pallid skin. The boys all had purplish bruises under their eyes, like they never got enough sleep; I imagined that if I saw the two girls without makeup, they would have bruises too. And although their features didn't look particularly similar, they all had a look about them that just screamed _Family! This is a Family!_ With a capital _F_ and everything. None of them touched a bite of food, although they all toyed with their plates of deep-fried cafeteria crap. One by one, as the lunch-period wore on, they got up, singly or in pairs, to dump their still-full trays and mingle with other lunch-tables before drifting off gracefully to their next classes. The only one who vanished without socializing was Edward. And, just as Jessica had foretold, Alice came right up to our table and stuck out her hand at me.

"Hi," she said perkily. "I'm Alice Cullen. It's super to meetcha!"

"Um," I said bemusedly. "I'm Bella Swan."

"I know," she said, giggling and winking at me. I was actually _awed_ by her. Not just shy, the way I get around strangers, but blown away by her prettiness and the graceful, balletic way she moved, the way her expensive-looking dress always looked like it was being ruffled gently by invisible fans in a photoshoot. And everyone else at Fucks High—oops, now I was doing it—had waited for some excuse to introduce themselves, but she just came right up and did it, like she didn't give two craps about the whole introductory-waltz of socially unsure teenagers. "Listen," she went on. I couldn't tear my eyes off her pink, rosebud lips. "I have to run or I'll be late for my next class, but I was new here last year, and I know what it feels like, so I wanted to at least say hi." I dragged my eyes up to meet hers.

"You were?" I asked. "I thought you were all upperclassmen."

"Oh, we are," she assured me. "We transferred here from our old school, though. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I'm having a party next weekend, and basically all the upper classes are coming, and it would be awesome if you wanted to swing by. You're coming, right Jess? Ange?" Jessica and Angela nodded, pleasure evident on their faces. I had to admit, it did feel incredible to be addressed by this perfect-looking girl. "Awesome! Kay, well, gotta run! See you guys!" And she was gone, leaving behind her nothing but a scent of the most beguiling perfume and the soft rustle of what had to be silk.

"Wow," I said, shaking my head.

"I know, right?" said Jessica. "She may be a spazz but she's pretty cool. She invited half the school to this thing."

"I can't wait to see their house," said Lauren, leaning in. "I heard they live in a mansion in the woods."

"It's haunted," affirmed Jessica. "It was designed in the thirties by a doctor's wife, but they vanished as soon as it was done and no one ever saw them again. I heard Rosalie saying that was why they took the house, like it was meant for them. You know, 'cause of the similarities and stuff."

"Wow," I said again.

* * *

Edward Masen did not return to the Ashland house for two full days. The burning was ever at his throat, but no animals passed by to relieve it. No humans, either, thank heavens.

After two days, he thought for sure the woman would be dead or healed or gone or _something_. According to the doctor, not many survived the transformation, and the woman had been almost at death's door already. But when Edward finally steeled his nerves to open the front door, he knew at once that the transformation had succeeded: there was a sharp smell of ammonia that barely covered a lingering hint of blood, but it didn't smell like edible blood. It smelled dead: blood shed days ago and no longer good to drink. And over that was the scent of a new vampire, the second vampire he had ever smelled in his life but unmistakable in its heady sweetness.

"So it worked," he said angrily. "You've transformed her into a creature like us."

"Yes," said Carlisle warily. "Edward, I...I cannot think how to excuse myself. I knew her years ago, and I could not let her die. She was such a joyful thing when I knew her."

"You were selfish," said Edward harshly.

Carlisle flinched. _Yes_, he thought. _I was selfish. But how could I let her die?_

"You _should_ have let her die," hissed Edward. Carlisle flinched, and Edward realized too late he should not have answered Carlisle's unspoken thought. But before he could divine some excuse, another voice cut across his consciousness.

_I am glad he saved me_, thought the woman. Edward looked at her in surprise; her lips still hadn't moved.

"What did you say?" he asked, touching the back of her hand.

Carlisle started toward them. "She didn't say—" But Edward cut him off with the impatient twitch of one hand.

_I'm glad he did it_, thought the woman again. _So glad. What if I had died, having never seen him again? How could I be happy in heaven without him?_

"You don't understand," said Edward desperately, grabbing her hand too tightly but knowing that he could not possibly hurt her now. "This life, it is a cursed life. The burning—"

"The burning will be worth it," said the woman through beautiful lips still dusted with dried blood.

Carlisle looked from Edward to the woman in confusion. "Edward?" he asked tentatively. _What on earth is happening?_ he thought.

"She thought of you these last ten years," said Edward, "as much as you thought of her. So it seems to me."

_I don't understand—_

"I hear people's thoughts," said Edward shortly. "I did not tell you because I did not want you to know. But I cannot hide it now. I suppose this makes me more a monster than ever, does it not?"

"You read minds?" said Carlisle. _Oh, dear_.

"Yes," said Edward.

"Edward," said Carlisle after a long pause. "I am sorry that I brought you into this life against your will. Your mother begged me to save you, and I did not understand then that it would cause you such grief to be saved. I am sorry for that. But please, I beg of you, will you help me to help Esme? With your power you could do so much; you could help me keep her safe."

Edward's eyes flicked over to the woman, whose eyes still hadn't opened. He could hear in her thoughts how terrible the burning was, and suddenly realized just how much the pain in his own throat had lessened after his first year; hers was a thousand times worse, a burning newly-minted.

"Please, Edward," said Carlisle, pressing his hand to Edward's. "Please. I know I have wronged you. But please help me help her."

"Yes," said Edward faintly. He could feel something unspoken and powerful that fell from the woman Esme in waves: pure, open, forgiving love. So different from the constant guilt he felt from Carlisle. So different from his own bitterness. This was a woman who was born to love and be loved. Perhaps if Edward was condemned to live this life, he could do no better than to live it beside a woman like Esme. Perhaps the love he felt underlying all her thoughts would seep into his own. Perhaps he could absorb the forgiveness that ran like a current through her mind, and learn to forgive Carlisle. Forgive himself.

"Edward? Is that your name?" the woman asked, struggling against the burning to get this simple question out. In a moment the pain would overpower her, Edward could tell. He took her hand and pressed it.

"Yes," he said. "Stay with us, Esme. We will help you."

* * *

**Just a couple little changes in this chapter: First, Bella is not a huge dick to all the people at school who are going out of their way to be friendly and nice to her, and all the boys aren't madly in love with her specially unique special uniqueness. Second, if the Cullens all hate school and being around humans, why the hell would they...****_constantly go to school and be around humans?_**** My Cullens actually interact with the student body and enjoy activities other than sitting very still and judging people.**

******Also, I am sick of Bella whining about the two things that you are NOT NOT NOT allowed to whine about if you are a female living on this planet: being white and thin. Try being a dumpy woman of color some day, Bella, and see how the world treats you, and ****_then_**** maybe you can complain to me about how you're like, just so skinny and your perfect skin is like, just so pale!**

**Lastly, and this is important, Edward actually drives a cool car. Listen, nothing against Volvo, I'm sure they are very nice automobiles, but the way Smeyer describes our impossibly wealthy sexy hero as driving a "shiny new" silver Volvo is a lot like a toddler explaining in great detail that he has new shoes, and they ****_velcro and have lights on the sides!_**** Like, woman...no. Put that bitch in a Beemer where he belongs.**


	3. Rhapsody in Blue

Angela walked me to my Biology lab after lunch. She seemed shy, like me, which made me warm to her faster than I had to the overpowering Jessica. We didn't talk much, but at least what we _did_ say felt genuine. I waited at the front of the class to get my slip signed, and then looked around for a place to sit. All the black-topped lab tables were occupied; Angela gave me an apologetic glance when she caught me looking longingly at her table. There was only one empty space.

And it was right next to Edward Cullen.

_Okay, gods_, I thought fervently to myself as I walked slowly down the aisle toward the empty seat. _I've been good this year. Please let me grow a pair of boobs in the next six seconds_.

The gods apparently have a sense of humor, because instead of growing boobs, I tripped over an extension cord and fell into my seat. Just as I collapsed next to Edward, his whole body went rigid. He half-whirled away from me—and then he _hissed_. Actually hissed. Like a cat or something. I looked up guiltily, sure that I had knocked over something of his, but he wasn't looking at his belongings, he was looking at _me_. And the look on his face—well, I've never been able to relate well to people my age, but even a dope like me could read the intention behind that gaze. He looked like he hated me more than anything in the world. What did I do wrong? My face burned and I hid my scarlet cheeks behind my hair, trying to hunch away from him. Okay, wow. Jessica was right about this guy. He obviously did think he was better than us mere, clumsy mortals.

The whole period was tense and miserable. Mr. Banner, the teacher, lectured on cellular anatomy. I had already studied this, but I took notes just to have something to do other than stress about the pissed-off god sitting three feet to my right. Every now and then I peeked over at him through the curtain of my hair, and not once did he relax. He didn't even move a muscle, as far as I could tell. He didn't even _breathe._ Jesus, did I stink or something? The loathing in his eyes was so eloquent I could practically hear him arranging for me to have a little accident. I had never ever met anyone who looked so intensely full of hate.

At the bell, Edward rose from his seat and vanished out the door faster than my eyes could follow. With him went every last shred of my self-confidence.

* * *

In the summer of 1924, a record of the shockingly modern _Rhapsody in Blue_ blared from the Victrola in the corner of the parlor. Edward sat before the piano, his fingers brushing silently over the ivory keys in time to George Gershwin's playing. This was the most complicated piece he had ever attempted to learn, made yet more complicated by the lack of published sheet music. Still, having heard this exultant piece, Edward could not think of going back to the printed sheets atop the piano, bearing titles like _Tea for Two_ and _Swanee_.

At a card table at the other end of the parlor, Esme carefully dipped a paintbrush in a basin of water and touched it to a glob of watercolor in a separate tray. Edward could feel the tension emanating from her, and he could hear in her thoughts how difficult all this was.

_Don't snap_, she mentally instructed the paintbrush. _Don't tear_, she instructed the paper. And, underneath it all, Edward could just pick up the strain that underscored so many of her thoughts, a wordless concern for the boy who barely moved from the piano. He sighed, a mortal gesture that had begun to come back to him of late. Sighing felt good. It felt a little like being a human, with a human's need to have physical relief for psychological miseries.

Edward stopped miming _Rhapsody_ and looked down at his hands. They were the hands of a seventeen-year-old boy, long-fingered and unweathered. Edward was twenty-three now. Some day, he would be a hundred, and he would still look seventeen. Frozen in time. A worthless bug trapped in amber.

There was a soft rustle and then a hand on his shoulder. Edward looked up to see Esme smiling at him.

"My mind needs a rest," she said. "Will you dance with me?"

Edward smiled back, more for her benefit than his. But when she began to dance the exuberant steps of the Charleston in time to the music, Edward felt his smile grow genuine. He joined her, kicking and swaying and twisting, until dark thoughts were banished and all he could think about was how much fun he was having. Esme beamed at him. Her shin-length dress— shapeless and drenched with beads, as modern as the music—sparkled in the light from the gas lamp. Edward's leather shoes creaked under the strain from his wild movement.

They had moved on to a Viennese waltz that had made matchsticks of Esme's card table and Edward's piano bench when Carlisle came home. The doctor stopped at the doorway and stared as the two vampires he had sired swung around the room, both in hysterics at the destruction their madcap dancing had wrought on the parlor.

"I leave you alone for four hours, and look what happens,"Carlisle teased."I believe you two have taken utter leave of your senses!"

"I believe we have," Edward managed to say before an irreverent wink from Esme sent him back into gales of helpless laughter.

* * *

My last class was Gym. Volleyball, to be specific. I had a special dread of Gym, bred in me over many long years of uncoordinated tetherball. I was always picked last for teams, which was fine by me; if I could have my way, I'd be picked _never _for teams. No one made fun of me or anything, but I was glad to have Jessica in my class. She told me in a whisper to just stand behind her, since she was pretty good at the game. I liked her about thirty-two percent more for this.

After Gym, I went back to the front office to return my paperwork. I was mentally exhausted from all this friend-making—and, truth be told, from the serious damage Edward's behavior did to my self-esteem. I couldn't get this day over with fast enough. There I had yet _another_ thrill in store. There was already someone talking to the red-haired woman at the desk. Someone with untidy reddish-brown hair, someone tall and pale and gorgeous, someone who was in a big hurry to switch out of sixth-period Biology.

"Any other period will do," he said imploringly. The woman looked flustered. I sat down in a folding chair against the wall as quietly as I could, hoping against hope that he wouldn't notice me. Of course, "as quietly as I could" has never been very quiet: in my clumsiness, I missed the chair and ended up with one buttcheek hanging off, whereupon I dropped my sheath of papers. And then, even though it hadn't been that loud at all, Edward turned around slowly and disbelievingly and looked at me. And that look of pure loathing was right back in his eyes, like he couldn't understand how I dared to be near him like that. I straightened my spine and glared right back at him. Who the hell was he, anyway, to treat me like some pariah? Everyone else at this school was a saint compared to him.

"Never mind," he said slowly through gritted teeth. "I'll manage."

"Are you sure—?" asked the woman.

"I'm sure," he said, and then he swept angrily from the room.

* * *

In 1933, Edward's throat was burning, but that was all right; he was so much more used to it than in the beginning.

"You look so handsome," said Esme, smoothing a strand of Edward's hair over his brow. "I'm proud of you, Edward."

"Yes," said Edward drily, "I've really mastered the dance of Stepping On A Lady's Toes."

"You're a charming dancer, as you are well aware," she laughed. "And besides, think of it: just ten years ago, the very thought of going out among humans would have filled you with trepidation."

"Not you, though," said Edward, looking away from her eyes.

"It's easier for me," said Esme, affixing an earring to her earlobe. It was one of a stunning pair of Tiffany diamonds, a gift from Carlisle on their tenth wedding anniversary just a few months past. Her ears had been pierced in life, but of course the holes had closed during her transformation, and now all of her earrings were the sort to clip on. "I don't know _why_ it's easier for me, but it is. It's nothing to do with any particular virtue I may possess; I was merely lucky. And it will become easier for you, too."

Edward knew, as even Esme herself did not, how false her words were. Her virtue bordered on the saintlike. When he had absconded six years previously in rebellion against Carlisle's animal diet, he had ignored every human thought that might have tempered him. When at last he came to his senses and returned, red-eyed and penitent, to his sire and his new adopted mother, she had held him in her arms and stroked his hair while he shuddered with guilt. Unable to keep such a secret, he had told them both of the crimes he had committed, the murderers he had murdered. And Esme had held him all the same, even when he confessed to the murder of the man she had once called husband.

"Oh, Edward," she had said, pressing her lips to the top of his head. "Charles was a terrible man, but I would never have asked you for this. You must know that I would never have asked it."

Edward said nothing. He _did_ know.

"Promise me this will end," she had whispered. "It must not go on. Please, my darling boy, stay with us."

"I'm so sorry," he had moaned, curling into a fetal ball and huddling in her lap like a child. "I promise, Esme, I'm so sorry, so sorry..."

_Stay with us_, she had thought. _Stay where you are loved. Stay with us._ The chant of a good witch, a song of forgiveness: _Stay with us, stay with us._

And so Edward had stayed.

"Are you two ready?" asked Carlisle now, appearing in the doorway. Edward could hear Carlisle's new Model B grumbling in the garage.

"Yes, darling," said Esme, sweeping over to kiss her husband. Edward looked away, not wanting to intrude on their private moment. And, truth be told, not wanting to see the joy that their mutual love brought to them: it could be painful to watch from the outside. He knew he had no right to complain: Carlisle had waited so many long years to find the love of his life, and Edward was still a young man. Only thirty-one, and a vampire for less than half that time. He could feel his thirty-one years of experience battling the seventeen-year-old boy who would never quite go away. He would always be this _thing_, a young man with an old man's mind, an old man with a young man's mind. Both at once.

And he knew, from hearing the tales Carlisle had told of his years among the Volturi and his meetings with various nomads, that it could be centuries before Edward found a mate. It could be _never_. There was a coven of ancient vegetarian females living in Alaska, none of them mated. There was Marcus of the Volturi, whose mate had died millenia ago and who would never find another.

The thought filled him with hopelessness. He had been in love once as a human. He'd been fourteen at the time, and his best friend in Chicago had had a cousin visit him for a whole summer. Mary Friedman, her name was. Beautiful Mary, a year older than Edward, fresh and blooming as a rose, so charming that Edward became bumbling in her glorious presence. Of course he hadn't told her of his feelings. Why would an angel like Mary Friedman ever pay attention to a nothing like Edward Masen?

Now Mary would be a wife and mother, probably. The freshness of youth would have faded from her cheeks, exchanged for something infinitely more valuable. Edward hoped that, wherever Mary Friedman was now, she was happy.

* * *

My second week of school was a little easier than my first day had been, partly because I had used the weekend to unpack, set up my room and stock up Charlie's fridge with something other than eggs and tortillas. I had plenty of classes with Jessica and Angela, and they were more than happy to keep the conversation going with minimal input from me.

And Edward was absent the whole week.

I was mostly glad not to have to deal with his weird douchey behavior, and it was nice to have a whole lab table to myself, but I had to admit, he had a sort of magnetic draw on my imagination. I thought about him constantly, probably because his behavior had been so arbitrary and so severe. The rest of his family was there all week. Alice alternated shooting me nervous looks and winking at me whenever she passed me on the way to a class, and the other one—Rosalie—even stopped by my locker to hand me a flyer for a black-box theater production she was in.

"I know it's in Port Angeles," she said in a voice that matched her perfect looks, "but I'm trying to get the school to agree to put something together next semester, and if enough students showed an interest..."

"I'll try to make it," I said weakly. This family was big on inviting total strangers to things. Or maybe that was just a Forks thing.

"Cool," she said, flashing her brilliantly white teeth at me in a radiant smile. They _had_ to be bleached; no one had teeth like that naturally. "Hey, are you coming to Alice's thing?"

I thought about her brother, and how my existence obviously offended him so much he would rather flunk out of high school than be near me. Then I thought about the prospect of finding my way around their mansion, which I had heard was made of highly-breakable glass.

"Um," I said. "Actually, I think my dad wants to hang out with me."

Rosalie gave a look that clearly said, _Seriously? Um, lame?_ And I had to agree with her. It was a lame excuse. I was as clumsy with excuses as I was with my feet. But Rosalie didn't say anything more, just shrugged and went off to pester the next student about her play.

Without Edward around to be pissy at me, it was a much more relaxing—albeit boring—week. Every lunchtime, I found my eyes drifting over to their table, and although I tried to hide it even from myself, I couldn't prevent the shot of disappointment when _he_ wasn't there. It was ridiculous; why did I even care? Was it just because his doucheyness was such a mystery? It certainly allowed me to feel some good old-fashioned righteous outrage. I would spend all of Biology crafting imaginary arguments with him, where he accused me of one thing or another and I haughtily told him off and then strode away, victorious. And then I would feel like a complete tool, not to mention a crappy feminist: what kind of person actually _fantasizes_ about confrontations like that? Why did I waste so much time thinking about a guy who was so obviously a jerk?

Still, it was always with a little pang that I watched Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett climb into the 'Stang (of course it was theirs), and drive away. And the BMW never showed up, not once in the whole week (_double_ of course).

That weekend, so as not to make a liar of myself, I really did hang out with Charlie. He was an indifferent cook, but I enjoyed putting together the occasional meal.

"You know, Bells," he said to me Sunday night over a dinner of ravioli. "I'm glad you seem to be settling in okay."

"Yeah," I said, surprised at myself. "It's crazy, I didn't expect—"

"Didn't expect what?" he asked warily, scrutinizing his pasta with unnecessary intensity.

"Um, didn't expect to make friends so fast," I said quickly. I didn't want to hurt his feelings or anything. And I mean, it was still Forks, gray and green and wet. But still. It had its silver linings. This place was high-nitrogen fertilizer for my already-overactive imagination. I was already wondering if I could make it as a writer, something I'd tried to do in Phoenix but which had always seemed to hit a wall. And I liked Angela and Jessica, and a few other kids at school.

"Yeah," said Charlie, a rare smile creeping under his moustache. "Well, I knew you'd find friends. You're a pretty neat girl. Even if I _am _biased." Then, overwhelmed by this display of emotion, he dove back into his pasta.

Emboldened by our success at a real conversation—five whole sentences in a row!—I went on, "I'm already friends with two girls at school. And one girl invited me to a party this weekend, but I figured I'd rather stay in and finish unpacking."

"Aw, Bell, you don't have to do that," said Charlie. "You should go have fun. Unpacking can wait." I took a moment to be thankful that my dad was the only police chief in the world who wanted his teenage daughter to go out and have fun at parties. He probably knew I was such a dork that I would never get into any trouble, anyway.

"Well, it's too late now," I said, spearing another ravioli on my fork and swirling it around in tomato sauce. "It was yesterday. And the Cullens live kind of far away, anyway."

"Oh, you're friends with the Cullens, then?" asked Charlie with interest.

"Um, not exactly," I said, blushing. "One of them hates me—I'm not sure why—and I only got the invite because I'm an upperclassman. It wasn't a big thing."

"Well, the doctor's a real nice fellow," said Charlie. "He didn't have to come here and make pennies doing the red-eye at the clinic. And his kids never give me a lick of trouble. Never even catch 'em speeding."

* * *

The ballroom gleamed with electric lights. Couples twirled and swung across the parquet floor, while a quartet played on the bandstand. Edward was happy in Rochester. It was a good town, sheltered by the clouds that rolled in off of Lake Ontario. The landscape was gently hilled in some places, shattered into craggy ravines in others. It was a land shaped by ice and rocks and dirt, softened by time. It felt like a good place to call home.

Esme and Carlisle joined the whirling waltzers as soon as they had checked their coats. Edward stood to the side and watched the dance. There were a hundred beautiful girls here tonight, all of them dressed in clinging, floating gowns. The men looked dashing. The thoughts that intruded on Edward's mind were largely happy ones, the excited thoughts of young people in love, the mellower joy of older couples. From Carlisle and Esme, he heard both.

Perhaps he would fall in love tonight. Edward smiled at the thought. It would be wonderful to find a mate; he knew from Carlisle and Esme how gloriously the world was transformed for vampires who had given in to love. Edward did not consider himself an overly romantic man, but neither his seventeen-year-old self nor his thirty-one-year-old self was immune to the charms of the elegant ladies who flirted away the evening. Carlisle introduced him to locals he had met in the course of his work as a doctor at Strong Memorial Hospital. Beautiful ladies smiled and allowed Edward to kiss their hands. Jocular young men slapped Edward familiarly on the back and offered him cigars, which he accepted eagerly. Although cigar smoke had no perceptible effect on Edward's nervous system, smoking gave him something to do with his hands. And it did help—almost—to mask the mouth-watering scent of blood that surrounded him on all sides. It was terribly uncomfortable to be here, surrounded by so many humans flushed with the thrill of a dance, of romance, of social drama. But it was worth it, if it allowed Edward to slink a little closer to his own lost humanity.

And he even danced himself, a few times. Twice with Esme. Once with a woman Carlisle had healed of her rheumatism. Once with the belle of the ball, a rapturous beauty named Rosalie Hale.

"Carlisle has spoken of you," said Rosalie, panting from the exertion of the Balboa they were dancing together. Edward could feel the eyes of Rosalie's fiance, Royce King, who seemed none too pleased at having his prize borrowed for a turn. But Rosalie herself seemed very sweet. Even if Edward hadn't been able to read her thoughts, he would have sensed how eager she was for her marriage. And although she kept pace with the conversation easily enough, he could hear that all she thought about was her future as a wife, as a mother. It would be marvelous if he could fall in love with a girl like her, someone bright-eyed and aspiring. It certainly didn't hurt that she was as pretty as a picture.

When the evening was through, Edward walked back to the house. He took a while, weaving through the smaller streets of Rochester, giving Esme and Carlisle time alone. He thought about the human girl Rosalie. In her mind he had detected a certain amount of vain pleasure in the admiration of her friends at the assembly, but this hadn't quite tipped the scales against her powerful longing for a family of her own. Edward would never have a family that could grow together, change together. Carlisle was a caring and brilliant mentor, and Esme was a mother and a sister and a friend all wrapped into one, but Edward still felt alone and lost most of the time. Would the kinship of the Cullens ever be enough?

* * *

**One little change: remember how creepy and horrible Smeyer's descriptions of Rosalie were? No one on earth is as vain as Smeyer writes Rosalie Hale to be. ****Hating Bella Swan because Edward thinks she's pretty is one thing, but are we to believe she is truly so vain that after her brutal rape and murder at the hands of her fiance and his friends, her very first thought upon waking as a vampire was disappointment that the hot guy she didn't know didn't want to have sex with her? That is not reality. No one is like that. I think Smeyer just believes that any woman who knows herself to be beautiful and desirable must be some vain hussy who is just asking for it. But more on that later.**

**I also need to talk about how Smeyer writes about youth. I'm giving the Cullen kids a pass because I don't see how a twenty-five-year-old vampire could pass as a highschool student, but the only possible reason for her to make Carlisle twenty-three and Esme twenty-six is that Smeyer believes that being young is better than being old. And twenty-three is unnecessarily young for the man we are supposed to be looking to as the patriarch of a vampire coven****. I don't think I ever mention it in the story, but please envision my Carlisle as being somewhere between thirty and thirty-five, which is roughly the age he pretends to be anyway. Esme is also in that age range, which makes a little more sense given what we know about her background story. (Contrary to popular opinion, just because women in Esme's day married at an average age of twenty-two didn't mean you were withered on the vine the minute you passed twenty-five.) An additional reason for this is that it's hard to view a woman only a few years older than you as your mother; I need there to be a more realistic spread in this 'family'.**


	4. Introductory Biology

The next day, the usual rain was being slowly replaced by clingy wet snow, which thrilled every student but me. I was the only one who hated the stuff, although Mike and Jessica fretted together about the snow ruining a trip to the beach on La Push that they were planning for a weekend soon. La Push was a small Indian reservation nearby, and I'd actually spent a fair amount of time on it as a kid, running around in the dirt with the various sun-browned offspring of my dad's two best friends, Billy Black and Harry Clearwater. I liked the rez okay, although it seemed like it would be weird to be there without any, you know, actual natives around. Like we'd be trespassing, even though I knew perfectly well we were allowed to come and go as long as we didn't mess anything up.

I was proud of myself for getting through the morning without feeling sorry for myself once. I even sort of participated in Jessica and Angela's conversation on our way into lunch. Out of habit, my eyes flicked over the the beautiful table, and then back to my companions. And then back to the beautiful table, where five Cullens were seated around five untouched trays of food.

I felt my throat constrict. I tried to make myself look busy, brushing slush out of Jessica's hair, leftover from an impromptu slush-fight a few minutes before. Then I straightened my shirt and wished for boobs. Then I hated myself for being such a crappy feminist, hoping for attention from a guy who so obviously wasn't worth my time. Then I looked longingly over at the beautiful table again.

Ugh. How many years till graduation?

The Cullen-Hales were goofing off just like everyone else in the cafeteria, but when they did it they looked like they were filming a commercial or something. Emmett was spraying the girls with slush from his curly hair, and Rosalie and Alice were shrieking and leaning away from him. Edward and Jasper were laughing madly at the scene. It was the first time I'd seen Edward laugh, or even really smile. And dammit, he looked even _hotter_ when he laughed like that. Totally unfair!

"Yo!" said Jessica, snapping her fingers in front of my face. "Earth to Bella! What are you _looking_ at?"

And just as she said that, Edward turned and looked into my eyes, and I dropped my lunch tray like an idiot. But for once I had a good reason for my clumsiness.

His eyes, blacker-than-night the last time I saw them, were now...well, definitely not black. I'd have to see them closer to know for sure, but they looked a lot lighter to me today. And the expression confused me as much as the color: he didn't look like he wanted to kick my teeth out, he just looked curious. A little confused, maybe. But definitely in a good mood.

I wondered what had elicited this change. And then I hated myself for caring at all.

* * *

In the spring of 1933, Edward and Esme were hunting. It was only recently that they had felt comfortable hunting without Carlisle nearby, but if they took care to stay far from civilization when the blood began flowing, they wouldn't hurt anyone. This was a good thing for all: Carlisle didn't need to hunt as frequently as them, partly because of his inherent self-control and partly because of his age. As a result, they could hunt on their own, leaving Carlisle to work longer hours at the hospital.

It was amazing how rapidly Edward's life had changed after Esme entered it. In the years before she joined them, Edward had known cerebrally that Carlisle was a good man, caring and compassionate, and that his desire to make Edward happy was even more powerful than his desire to be happy himself.

But it was not until he had Esme's gentling influence that Edward's bitterness began to fade. For the first few years, it was nice just to have someone to worry about more than himself: Esme's last months alive had been considerably more traumatic than his own, and she was years behind Edward in adjusting to vampire life.

But as time passed and Esme became acclimated, something wonderful happened. Carlisle had always spent most of his spare time making house-calls or working in local asylums or hospitals. The houses he and Edward had bought together had felt spartan and somehow hopeless. Edward had practiced the piano day and night, but without real relish; it was nothing but a way of teaching dexterity to his new fingers, a meaningless means to an end. But after a few years, Esme became adept enough with her hands that she could spend the hours without Carlisle making their house into a home. She taught herself to draw and paint—skills she had possessed in life, but which were both easier and harder now that she held so much raw force in her hands. She planted a garden in the backyard and tended her flowers as lovingly as though they were children. She gave away all of their bare furniture and replaced it with soft, inviting couches and tables and chairs. Edward protested that there was no need for such frippery; he would only wreck it anyway, and so would she. Upon which she only laughed and said that that was no reason not to try for a little comfort.

And she was right; that was what seemed so strange to Edward. He was as comfortable standing as sitting, and never required physical rest. But his vampire senses were so much more attentive than his human ones, and he could still feel both pleasure and pain. He did not suffer from cold unless he went out bare naked in the dead of Rochester's brutal winter, although a hot oven was more painful to him now than it had been as a human. He could sit on a bed of nails and it wouldn't even break the skin, but sitting on one of the soft, fluffy chairs that Esme purchased felt genuinely pleasant. She knitted him blankets from the softest wool, and although he did not require the warmth they provided, it felt wonderful to wrap himself in their softness when he practiced late into the night.

In short, with Esme around, a house became a home. There was still bitterness sometimes, but Esme was such an optimistic woman that Edward could not help but feel better in her presence. And although he was envious, he was also genuinely happy for the love between her and Carlisle. The deepest part of Edward—the part that was still seventeen—began to feel that he had not only a mother but a father as well. That he had a family. Who knew what would have happened if Esme had been a different sort of woman?

"There are some mountain lions this way, Edward!" Esme shouted from half a mile away. Edward raced toward the sound. The wind whipped past his face and nearly tore his clothes from his body; he was running much faster than even Carlisle's Model B could go. Mountain lions were his favorite.

He and Esme gorged themselves on the large cats until their insides were sloshing with blood. Then they rinsed in a stream. Esme combed Edward's hair until it lay flat, although they both knew it would be flying in all directions before long. And then they ran the hundred miles back to their house in Rochester.

Edward could tell at once something was wrong: there was a sour, old-blood smell in the air, and a few spots of rust-red on the front porch. He held out his arm to stop Esme from proceeding.

"Carlisle?" Esme called, sniffing the air. _Oh god, what's wrong? Let him be all right...!_

"I'm here!" Carlisle shouted, but his words were almost drowned out by a strange woman's scream. "Don't come in! It isn't safe!"

Esme turned to Edward, her face stiff with terror. "What happened?" she asked. "What's he thinking?"

"Stay here," said Edward. He took a deep breath and held it, then walked around to the back door which opened onto the kitchen. He closed his eyes and listened for Carlisle's thoughts.

_Poor thing_, the doctor was thinking in an agonized chorus. _Oh, you poor thing, so soon to have been married..._

There was another mental voice as well, one which matched the pitch of the screams. It tickled at Edward's consciousness; he was sure he'd heard it before. But where?

_Why does everything hurt so?_ the woman was thinking. _I thought I would die and the pain would stop..._

Who _was_ that? She was screaming and thinking at the same time, like the screams were an involuntary response totally removed from her consciousness. Vaguely Edward remembered that his own transformation had been like that, a pain that held him hostage but didn't seem connected to him in any way he could understand. Like being rent by invisible, wild animals and lit on fire and plunged into the Arctic all at once, the transformation hurt too much to process consciously.

_Royce_, the woman thought, again. And the screams grew louder.

Royce King. The name came to Edward suddenly, and with it the name of the woman: Rosalie Hale, the beauty he'd danced with who had thought of nothing but her own glowing future. Edward ran back to where Esme waited at the end of their long drive.

"What is it?" she asked urgently. "What happened? Is Carlisle all right?"

"Carlisle is all right," Edward said heavily. Beautiful, joyous Rosalie Hale, so eager for her future. Oh, how would she take this frozen existence? "It's Rosalie Hale," he explained. "Something happened to her. I...I don't know what. I didn't want to stay..." And suddenly, without warning, Edward couldn't bear the thought of beautiful, happy Rosalie Hale coming to an end. He hunched over, wheezing for breath, not from necessity but from emotion. Esme crouched beside him. Her arms snaked around his shoulders and she held him close.

_She was engaged_, thought Esme. _Carlisle would never have interfered with that. She must have been hurt somehow_. And then her mind filled with images of car crashes, of trainwrecks, of criminal attacks. Edward lurched away from her, trying to escape her dark thoughts.

"Edward," Esme said, and he sighed with relief when she tried to temper her thoughts. "Something must have happened to her. Carlisle would not have changed her unless she was at death's door. He would not have changed me, either."

"Why does he change anyone at all?" Edward whimpered. "He has _us_ now. I know he was lonesome before, but surely not any more—he has had such happy thoughts since he found you."

"He changed you because your mother begged him on her deathbed to do so," said Esme gently, reminding him of what he already knew. "He would not have interfered otherwise. And he changed me because I was already dying, and..." She trailed off and her thoughts became uncharacteristically jumbled.

"And he was already in love with you," he finished heavily.

"You know that he prefers not to alter the natural flow of human life," Esme went on. "Until she wakes, we can only guess at what has happened to her, at what moved Carlisle to intervene. But we can be certain it must have been something dreadful. It will not be only the burning that will torment her, my son. She will have other hurts."

"I know," said Edward helplessly. Could he be blamed for feeling trepidation at the prospect of having his head invaded by yet another stranger? Who was to say that Rosalie would be as warm and as loving as Esme? Or as thoughtful and intelligent as Carlisle? She had been perfectly sweet when he had danced with her months before, but she had seemed more firmly _human_ than most people he met. How on earth would she respond this new, inhuman life?

* * *

I practically sprinted to my Bio lab as soon as lunch was over. I wanted to hide under my desk before anyone else got there, but since that would have been childish, instead I just nudged my chair away from the other one and then dumped my pile of books in the middle of the table, to serve as what I hoped would look like an ultra-casual barricade. Then I took out the book I was reading at the time—_Northanger Abbey_ by Jane Austen; since I was being so melodramatic these days, it seemed appropriate—and promptly forgot about everything going on around me. I didn't even notice when the chair beside me filled in with something tall and glorious.

"What are you reading?" asked a low, musical voice. Ordinarily I would be annoyed at anyone who didn't see that burying myself in a book was my way of disengaging from the world. Today, I welcomed it, because the voice belonged to Edward, and he actually sounded curious. Friendly, even.

Instead of answering, I tilted the cover so he could read it.

"That's a good one," he said, smiling a crooked smile that made me go wobbly in the gut. "Very funny. Just be careful reading that novel; you don't want your soft feminine brain to rot."

I let out a surprised laugh and shut the book. "You've read it?" I asked, delighted. I couldn't think of a single teenage boy who would cop to reading what most guys would term "chick lit". But I didn't need to ask, really: didn't his joke prove that he had not only read but understood it as well?

"Certainly," he said. "It's a classic. I'm Edward Cullen, by the way. I'm sorry I didn't take the opportunity to introduce myself last time. I'm afraid I was having a rather trying week."

Okay, so maybe his weird behavior had nothing at all to do with me, and I was just self-centered enough to think it had. That was embarrassing. But I couldn't even focus on being embarrassed, because it was so adorable to hear him talk. His voice was like a lamb's ear rubbing against the inside of a cello. Okay, _definitely_ being too melodramatic. I wondered briefly if I should leave Jane Austen behind and start in on Neal Stephenson or something.

"I'm Bella Swan," I said, sticking out my hand and knocking a lab microscope off the table in the process. Only it never hit the floor, because Edward, already reaching out to take my hand, caught it just in time. Just like a ninja!

"That was just like a ninja," I commented suavely.

Edward laughed a little and shrugged. "Here," he said, holding out his hand once more. "Let's try that again." This time I managed not to make a total fool of myself. We shook hands for the briefest moment possible, but even that split second was enough to tell me two things: One, his skin was as soft and satiny-smooth as a baby's. And two, he was ice-cold, like he'd been rooting around in a freezer for hours.

"Cold?" I asked innocently, shoving my hand surreptitiously between my thighs to bring them back to room temperature.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I have poor circulation."

We sat there in silence, watching the other students trickle in. Angela saw me sitting in non-defensive mode with Edward, and her eyes widened before she glanced quickly away, a small smile on her lips. I wondered if she was thinking of what a gomer I appeared next to this impossible being. Probably not, though; Angela was too nice.

After a while, I nerved up enough to talk to him again. "So," I said, affecting a casual tone, "I hope everything's okay now."

"Of course," he said quickly. "Why shouldn't it be?" He almost sounded..._defensive_.

"Well, you seemed really upset last time I saw you. I thought maybe I did something to bug you."

"What could you have possibly done?" he asked, and he sounded like he meant it. "It's not your fault I'm kind of an asshole sometimes. I really am sorry about that."

"You weren't an asshole," I demurred. "Sometimes I annoy people just by like, existing."

"I find that hard to believe," he said, leaning in a fraction of an inch and trying to catch my eye. I didn't let him, though; I wasn't used to talking about myself to strangers, and like Jane Eyre, I didn't think I had it in me to talk intelligently to a hottie. Okay, maybe she didn't phrase it _quite_ like that, but the principle was the same.

"Okay," I amended, "Maybe I don't annoy people, exactly, but I certainly do get in the way of normal society. I'm sort of a non-entity, you know? Which is fine!" I added quickly, lest he think I was fishing for compliments. "I'm used to it."

"Well, you're just about all anyone thinks about in this school," said Edward, leaning back in his seat and giving me an oddly unsatisfied look.

"Psh," I scoffed. "That's just because I'm a novelty. It'll wear off soon enough. Besides, how would you know what anyone thinks about? Nobody ever says what they're really thinking."

"That's true," he said slowly, looking at me with another of his curious, unsatisfied glances. I was beginning to feel like I was failing the _Make Friends With Edward Cullen Test_—with flying colors. "But I can't say I've met many people other than me who are willing to admit it."

"Well, I guess I spend more time observing than talking," I said—which was pretty funny, given this loquacious streak. I couldn't help it, though. Edward was just so easy to talk to, when he wasn't intimidating me with his hotness and apparent disdain.

"That makes two of us," he said, and at that, Mr. Banner walked in.

We were doing a lab I'd done before, identifying slides of the stages of mitosis. I felt a little flutter at the thought of appearing smart in front of Edward, which even I could acknowledge was dorky. Like, what girl tries to impress her crush with her superior knowledge of the inner workings of onion root tip cells? This led me to an even _more_ alarming thought: _was_ Edward my crush? I certainly thought about him incessantly. Until now, my thoughts had been angry fantasies about one-upping him. Now that it seemed I'd imagined the part where he hated me, I suddenly found that I wanted him to _like_ me. Not necessarily as a girlfriend or anything—no way would a cool, sexy, BMW-driving guy like him go for invisible little me. But still. I'd settle for what I could get, even if it was only a modicum of respect for knowing a prophase when I saw one.

"Right-o," he said when I identified the first slide. Then he peeked into the microscope—the same one he'd rescued from my clumsy attempts at hand-shaking—and said, "Anaphase."

"May I?" I said sweetly, hoping to catch him in an error. But he was right, it was anaphase. I shrugged and watched him write the word on our worksheet. His handwriting was distractingly beautiful, long and slanty and even and elegant. Kind of old-fashioned-looking, but since I was so backward myself, I actually found that charming. He even wrote with a fountain pen, like a grandpa.

We finished out the rest of the lab quickly. The rest of the class was nowhere near finished. I could see Angela trying to convince her lab partner that she knew what she was talking about on slide four; everyone else was even further behind.

"So, Edward," I said conversationally. "Do you usually wear contacts?"

"Pardon?" he asked, looking confused. Now that I saw them up close, his eyes were definitely lighter. Sort of the glowing golden-brown color of well-varnished teak.

"Your eyes were black when I saw you last," I pointed out. "Now they're...yellowy-browny." _Yellowy browny?_ What, did I not _want_ him to think I knew how to say grown-up words? What were all these flowery inner monologues for if I was going to just word vomit as soon as I opened my mouth?

"Oh," he said, looking away and scooching his seat away from mine a little bit. "Um...yes. yes, I do. I wear contacts. That's me. Ole contact-wearin' Edward."

"Cool," I said, deflating now that I had apparently insulted him. But when he spoke again, he didn't seem offended.

"So, what brings you to Forks?" he asked.

"Oh, it's...it's sort of a complicated story."

"I'm sure I can keep up," he said in a teasing voice. "I know how to tie my own shoelaces and everything."

"Okay," I said. "Well, the short answer is, my mom got remarried."

"Mm," he said, nodding sympathetically. "You don't like the guy?"

"No, Phil's okay," I said. "I mean, he's kind of young for her, but whatever, it's her life. We get along perfectly well. But he plays baseball."

"What, professionally?"

"Yeah," I said. "Minor league, nothing special. But he moves around a lot. And at first my mom just stayed in Phoenix with me, but I could tell she missed him. I mean, it's gotta suck spending your first year of marriage sans-husband, on lockdown with your teenage daughter. _I_ never would have done it."

"So she sent you away?" Edward asked, sounding a little angry.

"No, no, no," I said. "I sent myself away. Since she was never going to do it."

"Um," said Edward, looking puzzled. "But you don't like it here."

"I never said that!" I said defensively.

"Sorry," said Edward. "I shouldn't have assumed. It's just, whenever I see you outside you look like you're about ready to challenge the sky to a duel. And whenever I see you inside, you're usually just trying to avoid making eye contact." Jeez, was my social ineptness that obvious?

"Yeah," I admitted, blushing at the thought that Edward had noticed me scowling at the weather. I obviously did it more than I realized. "I do miss the sun. And Forks is so small and inbred and cramped. Phoenix was wonderful. But I don't hate it like I thought I would, you know? Charlie—he's my dad, Chief Swan—he's a pretty okay guy to live with. I'm alone a lot."

"That sounds awful," he said sympathetically. "Being left alone."

"No, no," I said, trying to make him understand. "I like being alone. I mean, I like having friends, too. I need company—sometimes. But I think solitude is my natural state."

"I wish—" Edward began, looking frustrated, but Mr. Banner chose that moment to swing by.

"Done already?" he said, checking over the worksheet. "You know, Edward, I'm already aware that you know the material. I would like you to give Bella a chance to work on it, too."

"She identified most of them," said Edward. I flushed with pride. Ooh, maybe I did impress him with my awesome powers of slide identification!

"Oh," said Mr. Banner. "Excellent. Have you done this one before, Bella?"

"Yes," I said. "At my old school. Only we did it with whitefish blastula. But you know, one dividing cell looks very much like another."

"Well," said Mr. Banner, "Then I suppose it's a good thing you're partnered up with Edward here. Keep up the good work, you two."

"What were you saying?" I asked after a moment had passed. "Before he showed up?"

"Oh," said Edward. "It's nothing. I just...I wish I could figure you out."

"There's nothing to figure out," I assured him. "I am boring. I even bore myself. That's why I have to read all the time, to distract myself from the tedium of being me."

"I don't think you're boring at all," he said softly. "Anyway, you're certainly very mysterious." Mysterious? _Me?_ That was the pot calling the Tupperware black.

"Please," I said, laughing slightly at the absurdity of it. "I'm an open book. My mother tells me all the time."

"Well, _my_ mother tells me I'm the handsomest boy in school," said Edward, grinning. "You can't believe a word mothers say. They're liars, the lot of them."

_Um_, I thought, _in what sense is your mother a liar? The proof is in the pudding, gorgeous_. But I didn't say this out loud, because I am not a total spazz.

I was just about to try to find a really winning way to ask Edward about his circus family, but just then the bell rang. Fluid as a cat, Edward rose from his seat and left the room. He turned at the doorway to give me one last ponderous look, waved, and was gone.

* * *

**About vampire biology: Smeyer's descriptions of "marble hands" and "glassy lips" and "skin harder than diamonds" shows nothing but a total disregard for how skin and muscles actually work, which is by being flexible. Marble isn't flexible. It either stays in the position it was formed in kajillions of years ago, or else it breaks. It can't bend, _because it is hard_. Also, trying to kiss "glassy lips" sounds gross.**

**There is a reason our body parts are squishy: without soft, textured, slightly moist fingertips, we wouldn't be able to handle objects in the sophisticated way that separates us from like, crabs and beetles. Our basic human squishiness isn't a liability, it's a strength! Imagine wearing a metal gauntlet and trying to write with a pencil or do needlework. It won't work no matter how fine your motor skills are, because something hard and smooth like stone or glass has no grip. I'm assuming that she described them that way because in the dream that gave her the initial idea, sexy Edward looked like a marble statue and she thought it would make for a cool divergence from the usual vampire stuff where they're just immortal humans who drink blood. And I appreciate that. I don't know of any other mainstream depictions of vampires where their implacable strength is an actual _burden_, and that conflict makes a lot of sense in the story Smeyer chose to craft. But there's got to be a little credibility in there too. So in my mind, vampires have very smooth skin (which is impenetrable, like Kevlar) over just enough subcutaneous fat to give them some decent grip. Compromise!**


	5. Emergency Room

**Thanks for reading! F********eel free to totally ignore all of my A/Ns if they ruin your fun. I hate to ruin fun, mostly. Also feel free to comment while signed in so we can have fun talks together, and maybe agree on some things and maybe debate other things! ********If you leave a well-thought-out comment, either positive or negative, I will try to respond to it, but I can't do that if you're a Guest.**

* * *

It took another day and a half for Rosalie Hale's screams to subside. At last, Carlisle came out to the porch and said,

"You can come in now. I've cleaned up the blood and she has none left of her own."

Esme and Edward squeezed each other's hands and walked in the door. Esme and Carlisle went to each other's arms at once; they weren't often apart for so long, and it must have been torture to be so close and yet so far. To give them privacy, Edward followed his nose into the sitting room, where Rosalie Hale was lying on the couch.

She turned her head at the sound of Edward's step. He could see in her eyes how strange this all was for her. He could hear it in her thoughts: her powerful senses were startling. Every noise made her jump, every waft of air made her nose twitch.

"Rosalie?" said Edward tentatively. She looked at him steadily, and he could hear her remembering who he was. Then her face crumpled in misery and she turned away. Edward stood in the doorway until Carlisle and Esme appeared.

"We can acquire food for you," said Carlisle gently. "Would you like that, Miss Hale?"

_Royce_, thought Rosalie. "Royce," she said. Her voice sounded even smoother and more honeyed coming from her new vampire throat.

"I know," said Carlisle. "Forgive me, Rosalie, but you mustn't go to him yet. He would be unsafe. You must learn control first."

"Royce," she said again, louder.

"I promise," said Carlisle, "You will see him again. I'm so sorry, Rosalie, but you'll have to wait a while."

So that was why Carlisle had saved her: she must have been injured beyond human repair. And Carlisle did have a romantic streak; after all, wasn't that why he had saved Esme? Carlisle gripped his wife's hand, and Edward could hear his agonized thoughts: worries that Rosalie wouldn't take to their vegetarian lifestyle, worries that he had only made things worse, that the reward he was hoping lay at the end of Rosalie's road would never come. _Surely she will learn control_, he thought. _And she can be reunited with her beau, in one way or another. __Someone__ ought to have a happy ending_.

But Rosalie wasn't thinking of a happy reunion with her fiance. With dawning horror, Edward viewed the memories flashing through Rosalie's mind:

Strange hands, too many of them and too rough, grabbing at her coat, tearing her dress, sliding under her slip. Royce King, handsome, rich and entitled, moonshine on his breath and ugly indifference on his face. Too many hands, holding Rosalie down on the wet pavement in a dark alley. Royce King, indifference replaced by obscene pleasure, laughing in Rosalie's panicked face. Royce's friends, treating her like an object. Royce himself, treating her worse than an animal.

Royce King, the last one to leave, bestowing blow after blow on her bruised face and her broken body.

Royce King, striding drunkenly away from the burbling, bloody mass of his fiancee, his coat still buttoned, his pants still gaping.

Royce King, the rapist, the murderer.

Edward fell back against the doorway. Carlisle and Esme looked at him, startled by the intensity of his expression.

"Rosalie?" he said tentatively.

"_Royce_," whispered Rosalie Hale.

* * *

When my alarm went off the next morning, I knew at once something was different. I was one of those awful Morning People—not unlike Pod People—and I never balked at rising with the sun, but in Forks the sun didn't rise until the fog burned off around noon, and usually not even then. But there was a pearly-gray brightness beaming through my window. Would the sun shine today?

I dashed to my window and nearly cried with disappointment. Nope, no sun, just a dusting of snow over all the rain that had frozen solid in the night. This would be an absolute nightmare to drive in. And walk in. And exist in.

I made a big bowl of maple-apple-cinnamon oatmeal to fortify myself for the drive ahead. After breakfast, I dressed in two pairs of wool tights under my sturdiest jeans. Two pairs of thick socks squeezed into knee-high boots. A warm undershirt, a yellow oxford, and my fluffiest blue cardigan completed the outfit. I hoped I would be warm enough. Too bad I couldn't try to look sexy and mature at the same time, like Rosalie Cullen. Or whimsical and exquisite, like Alice.

I wasn't warm enough, but then again, I never am. I narrowly avoided falling on my ass in the driveway. Charlie had been gone since before I woke up, but I could see he had been busy: the Thing had snow chains on the tires. _Bless your overprotective heart, Charlie_, I thought gratefully, my throat constricting at the unexpected gesture. My mom never would have thought of such a thing.

The drive to school wasn't too bad, especially since I never drove faster than 35 mph. As a result of my grandmotherly driving, the lot was almost full when I arrived. I couldn't help but notice that Edward Cullen was leaning against his Beemer talking to Alice, a few cars down from mine. They both looked like models, as usual: Alice was wearing a pristine white peacoat, the kind of thing I would have covered in stains five minutes into wearing it. And Edward looked _extra_ tall standing next to his tiny sister, hands stuffed into the pockets of his gray wool jacket, scraping salted parking-lot-slush into piles with his boots.

I was so distracted by their picturesqueness that it took me a moment to notice the sound, a high-pitched screech that couldn't signify anything good. Then, for no reason at all, Edward suddenly looked up at me with horror in his face. Everything went into overdrive: the screeching sound got way too loud, and when I located the source I realized it was a van spinning out on black ice. Spinning right at where I was standing behind the Thing. Spinning _fast_.

I didn't even have time for my life to flash before my eyes: the van swung across the ice at a million miles per hour, pinning me to the Thing before I could react. Except that the van never touched me: just as I was screwing my eyes closed against the mortal agony of being crushed by a car, I felt something cold and hard slam me sideways. Whatever it was came from the wrong direction, pushing me out of the way of the van without a nanosecond to spare. I felt my head hit the pavement with a nasty _thunk_ and all the air went out of me. I couldn't see anything but the pearly gray sky over me and a sliver of crumpled metal. There was going to be pain, I could tell. There would be pain any second now.

"Bella?" whispered a voice, low and urgent. I squeezed my eyes closed and opened them again, and this time, silhouetted against the white sky was a face. The most beautiful face I had ever seen, crumpled in fear.

"Edward?" I tried to say, but it came out in a groan as the pain hit me. There was a sharp stabbing sensation at the back of my skull, while the rest of my body began to go numb with cold or shock. I could distantly hear shouts that sounded pretty important. "Was anyone hurt?"

"_You_ were hurt," said Edward. "Bella, are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Was anyone _else_ hurt, I mean?" I asked, trying to sit up. The whole world was spinning; I almost fell back onto the pavement, only Edward cupped his hand around the back of my head before it could make contact.

"Let's worry about _you_ right now, okay?" he said. "How many fingers?"

"I don't know, three," I guessed. I couldn't look away from his beautiful eyes long enough to count. "How did you get here so fast?"

"What?" he asked warily.

"You were over there talking to Alice," I said, "and then you were here." I noticed a dent in the van, right at Edward's shoulder height. In fact, it was not only at shoulder height, it was also the shape and size of his shoulder. That was...odd.

"I was right here," said Edward. The distant voices grew more distinct; people were calling my name.

"You weren't," I insisted. I was dazed and confused from cracking my head on the pavement, but I wasn't an amnesiac. I knew what I'd seen. "You were over there, and then you were here."

"Please, Bella," Edward implored, "please, just drop it. We'll talk about it later."

"Nng," I said. Edward propped his hands under my shoulder blades and held me still. This was by a wide margin the weirdest thing that had ever happened to me. His face was inches from mine; I could see perfectly clearly that he didn't have any pores or eye gunk or zits or _anything_. He was looking anxiously out toward the parking lot. Soon enough the commotion distilled into frantic shouts about Tyler (was Tyler the van's driver?) and calling 911.

"Charlie," I gasped. Oh god, they were going to call 911, and Charlie would find out about it, and he would come and get all freaked out—

"Sh sh shh," Edward hushed. "Just try to keep still, the paramedics will be here soon." Mesmerized by his melodic voice, I stopped struggling to sit up. "That's my girl," he said encouragingly, and instead of being horrified at my near-squish experience, I actually _blushed_ at the way Edward said the words. Was I brain-damaged?

I have to admit that I didn't mind the pain—or even the freezing cold—if it meant I could spend a few minutes staring up at Edward Cullen's perfect face. He wasn't looking at me, anyway, for which I was grateful. He was facing toward the crowd of teachers and students I could hear but not see, who couldn't quite reach where Edward and I were trapped between the two cars.

Before long, I heard sirens approaching. There was a metal-scraping commotion as the van was pushed far enough away for me to get up, and then—horror of horrors—they actually stuck me on a gurney. In a _neck brace_. I couldn't bear to watch the sea of student faces watching me get loaded into the back of an ambulance, and so I tried to stare over the crowd instead, in what I hoped was a chill and unruffled manner. Edward hovered nearby, explaining to the paramedics that I had hit my head pretty hard—okay, that was true, and yes, my head was throbbing like the blazes—and that I might have a concussion. But far from the crowd was a sight that actually distracted me from Edward. His family was gathered together in a little huddle, talking among themselves and shooting Edward occasional glances. What was weird was they didn't look freaked out or shocked like everyone else. They didn't even look like they were concerned their brother had just been nearly squashed to death by a van. They kind of even looked...well, _annoyed_. Rosalie looked downright pissed, scowling over at Edward every other word, her beautiful face dark as a stormcloud.

When I tried to locate Edward, however, he was out of sight. It turned out he was allowed to ride shotgun to the hospital, while _I_ had to ride strapped into the back like a mental patient. To make it even worse, shortly after the ambulance began to move I heard the shrill, brassy sound of police sirens following us.

Perfect. Now Charlie was here, escorting his daughter to the hospital. He caught up as soon as they started unloading me from the ambulance.

"Bells?" he grunted, grabbing my hand and running alongside the gurney as they rolled me through the doors. "Sweetheart, are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Dad," I said. "I don't even know why I'm here. I just fell down. I do that every single day of my life."

"Well, just sit still until the doctor can see you."

"I _know_, Dad." I couldn't exactly be annoyed at my father for being worried that his only daughter was getting wheeled into the ER, but it was hyper-embarrassing all the same, especially since he was in uniform and everything. They transferred me to a bed in a long row of beds, and promptly left me alone, dragging Charlie off to fill out forms. Someone came by after a few minutes to take me for a head X-ray, but then they brought me back to the same bed while the X-rays were developed. I saw that Tyler Crowley was in a bed a few down the row from me, and he looked pretty beat-up. In fact, his whole face was covered in shallow cuts. I was glad they'd put me far enough away that I couldn't smell the blood. I've _never_ been good with blood.

"Bella?" Tyler said anxiously. "Oh my god, I am _so, so_ sorry, Bella, I don't even know what happened, I couldn't brake in time—"

"It's okay, Tyler," I said wearily. "I wasn't hurt. The van didn't even touch me. I just fell down because I always fall down."

"I don't understand how you got out of the way," Tyler fretted. "I was so sure I was going to...going to..."

"Well, you didn't," I said, as reassuringly as I could. "Edward's a ninja, don't worry about it."

"Edward?" he said, knitting his bloody brow in confusion. "You mean Cullen? What does he have to do with it?"

"He pulled me out of the way," I said doggedly, thinking that Edward had better show up soon to explain some things. "He was right by me and he pulled me out of the way. Apparently."

"Wow," said Tyler. "I didn't even see him. God, I'm so sorry..."

I couldn't handle all of Tyler's apologies, so eventually I just closed my eyes and pretended to take a nap. Unbelievably, it worked: Tyler's fretting quieted and I was left alone.

I was just starting to drift off for real when I heard an unfamiliar—but deeply resonant and attractive—male voice asking if I was awake. My eyes snapped open and I took in a surprising sight. A blond doctor was leaning over me with a penlight in his hand, ready to test my eyesight or reflexes or something. He had Edward's eyes, sort of a mellow dark-gold color. And Edward's lack of pores. He looked like a painting of the archangel Michael brought to life. He had to be Dr. Cullen.

"I thought Edward was adopted," I said dazedly. "Why do you have the same eyes?"

That wasn't what I meant to say. I heard a low chuckle from behind the doctor, and then Edward's voice saying, "See, Carlisle? I told you she was sharp." He'd been talking to his dad about me?

"Edward and I come from the same part of the world," said Carlisle gently, in an I-don't-want-to-talk-about-it tone of voice. "How's your head feeling, Bella?"

"Fine," I said. "They gave me some ibuprofen. It feels fine. I mean, still sort of tender. But fine."

"Fine," Dr. Cullen repeated.

"Yup," I said determinedly. "Fine."

"Well, your X-rays look okay," said Dr. Cullen. "I'm just going to feel around the area." He lifted my head from the pillow with one hand and gently prodded the bump with the other. Was I imagining it, or were his fingers _freezing?_ He must have been outside recently. Or in the morgue. "Tender?" he asked when I winced.

"Yeah," I admitted. "But it's not too bad. I fall down all the time, so, you know..."

"Of course," said Dr. Cullen. "Well, you don't seem to be concussed. You can go home, but I want you to take it easy today, and come back at the first sign of dizziness or vertigo."

"Okay," I said. Then, unable to hold it in any longer, "What about _him?_"

"Who?" asked Dr. Cullen.

"Edward," I said. "Does he get to go back to school?"

"I'm fine," said Edward. "I didn't fall down or anything." There was a hint of a smirk around his lips. I frowned at him. Was he seriously going to keep pretending everything was normal?

"That van smashed into your shoulder," I insisted. "No way are you fine." I was getting sick of that word.

Dr. Cullen looked back and forth between me and Edward. Then he smiled, shrugged, and walked away with one last instruction to look out for any balance problems. Little did he know that my balance problems started long before the accident.

"Okay, Edward," I said, sitting up, "let's have it." At once he was by my side, helping me to my feet and steadying me with his hands. I shivered against their coldness and—if I was being honest—the thrill of having him touch me. Okay, I needed to get a grip. Edward could apparently teleport and dent vans with his shoulder, and here I was turning into goo because he was _touching _me. Ugh.

As a result of my self-disgust, I was a little snottier with Edward than I meant to be. "Tell me the truth," I said severely. "How did you get over to me so fast?"

"I was standing right near you," he said obstinately. "Hey, are you sure you're okay to leave? Your memory seems affected by the fall." I didn't like the way he said _fall_. Like he was laughing at me. What a jerk!

"Well, we can't all teleport!" I said, louder than I meant to. There was a sound from Tyler's bed.

"Do you mind?" Edward hissed, looking suddenly angry. He grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the ER, down a hall and around a corner.

"Ow," I said belatedly, looking down at my upper arm where Edward had grabbed me. I would probably have a bruise.

"Sorry," he said. "Listen, Bella, I really, really, _really_ need you to stop making a big thing about this. It's not a big deal. And you making it a big deal could get me in a lot of trouble."

Ooh, now we were getting somewhere. Maybe he was a secret agent!

"How?" I asked, trying to rearrange my pout into a winning smile.

"None of your business," he said curtly.

"It _is so_ my business," I insisted. "I won't tell anyone, I promise!"

"Damn straight you won't tell anyone," he said, leaning forward. His breath smelled incredible, and I swear to god I have never said that about anyone else. It didn't smell like toothpaste or whatever he had for breakfast, either: it smelled addictive and heady and haunting. Like honey wine.

"Why not?" I asked faintly.

"Because," he said, straightening up and stepping back. I lurched involuntarily, already missing his closeness. "There's nothing to tell." With that he strode away, and I was left wondering what on earth had just happened.

* * *

**So, I have some issues with this part of the book. I'll try to be succinct. The most obvious one is,**** I toned down Bella's aggressive ingratitude after Edward saves her life, because sheesh.**

**After this it gets more complicated. I have a serious bone to pick: Why does Smeyer insist on using rape as a plot-propeller? We don't find out what happened with Rosalie until a later book, and by then Smeyer's already made clear that Rosalie is just a character she uses for dumping all her bad ideas on. To be clear, I'm not saying that teen fiction shouldn't include depictions of rape. What I'm objecting to is the way she paints Rosalie's experience. She writes it like it's some lurid penny-opera, like she was sitting there brainstorming about how to make Rosalie more interesting and then she went, "Eureka! I'll have her get gang-raped!" The paragraphs in the book that deal with this are so completely devoid of empathy or emotional connection, so tone-deaf to the severity and _real-world-reality _of the issue she is writing about, so dropped-in-at-the-last-minute, that it makes me bilious with anger to read it. **

**I'm leaving Rosalie's rape in the narrative because it has the potential to explain and give purpose to some of the more vital aspects of her character. I am aware that everyone experiences trauma differently. I'm just hoping I treated the subject with a little more respect and nuance than Smeyer did, but this subject is almost always going to touch a nerve.**

**Also, it really skeeves me out how in the book Carlisle admits that he changed Rosalie hoping she could be a mate for Edward. I just envision this psychopath dragging a woman home by the hair and tossing her in a locked room with Edward, saying, "I brought you something to play with..._son_." It really undermines her whole rape-is-bad stance if Smeyer has the supposed good guy do something to Rosalie that is arguably worse than what Royce and his crappy friends did. When Royce imposes his desires on Rosalie's body against her will it is sinister and obscene, but when Carlisle does _the exact same thing_ it's just because he meant well! And he thought she wanted it! And we should forgive him because like, he's really a good man and this was just one little mistake! This is disgusting. I doubt Smeyer even noticed the overt symbolism, but I will not have that level of rape apology in my story. And I'm not even talking about the biting of Rosalie, though that's a part of it. I'm talking about _why_ he bit her. He bit Edward to save his life. He bit Esme to make himself a mate. He bit Rosalie to make Edward a mate. Are we seeing a pattern here? So we're going to pretend that he bit Rosalie to save her life, and not because he is a gross creepy Neanderthal who thinks women are toys that he gets to decide what to do with. **


	6. Attraction is a Hard Thing to Predict

In 1934, George Midevaine walked his dog in a park at night, stalked but unseen by an angelically beautiful woman with scarlet eyes. Catching up to him, she freed the dog from its leash; it whined and howled at her before running away with its tail between its legs. Then she wrapped her hands around George's throat and squeezed steadily until she could hear the breath had almost left him. He struggled and clawed at her, begging for clemency, and when his struggling had almost stilled, she released him. When he had caught his breath, she did it again. And again. Again, again, again, until his throat was almost collapsed and he could barely draw breath even without her hands on him. He could spend the night here in the park; it was cold, very cold, and he would be dead by morning. To be sure of it, she sat with him all night, her cold hands cradling his face and forcing him to look her in the eyes. His throat was too wrecked for him to make a sound.

Next came Henry Penn, in the suite he rented in a nice part of town. The honey-haired angel climbed the trellis outside his window and let herself in, poked around his apartment until he came home. When he saw her, he tried to scream, but as soon as his mouth was open she had stuffed a pair of his own dirty socks in it and fastened them firmly in place with his necktie. Then, slowly and deliberately, she broke every bone in his body that she could reach without puncturing the skin. The sweat broke out on his forehead after only one bone. She worked her way from the outside in, starting with the less vital bones like fingers and toes, then moving on to arms and legs. She saved his ribs for last, when he was fuschia from blood pooled under the skin. She broke the floating ribs and worked upward from there. About halfway through, a rib began to press into his right lung. After a few more, his right lung was half-filled with fluid. She did not inhale, because she knew that he might cough blood past his gag, and the last thing she wanted was for bloodlust to cause her to take in any part of this man, any more than she already had. But he never coughed up anything. After all the ribs were broken, he was still hanging on, though she could hear the bubbling sound in his right lung. The left lung, amazingly, was intact, and so the woman prodded gently until a shard of rib pierced it and Henry Penn finally, painfully, expired.

Robert Sousa. He was a member of a prestigious gentleman's club where he liked to swim laps late into the night. He didn't notice the well-formed woman who slipped silently into the Olympic-sized swimming pool in the empty, echoing room. But he certainly felt her icy, implacable hand on his ankle, dragging him down into the water. When he had almost run out of air, she released him, and he surfaced and swam swiftly for the ladder at the side of the pool. But before he reached it, she grabbed his ankle once again and dragged him back to the middle of the pool. Like a killer whale toying with a baby seal, she did this until he was too exhausted to try to escape anymore. When he had finally succumbed and sunk helplessly beneath the surface, she allowed him to see his assailant. No, she _forced_ him, with hard fingers that pried his eyes open in the stinging chlorinated water. She smiled prettily as he thrashed one last time and drowned.

And Royce King. Handsome, rich, successful Royce King. He knew she was coming. Of course he did. He barricaded himself in the most secure vault of his father's bank, with two burly guards posted outside. The woman, costumed with great care in a stolen wedding gown, her gleaming hair expertly dressed, was sorry to kill the guards: she did it quickly and from behind, so that they did not see her coming or feel a moment's pain. But she would have killed a great many more to get to Royce. Vengeance is a powerful motivator to a vampire.

Royce was drunk, naturally. When she entered the room, he began weeping like an infant. She dragged the guards in after her and closed the door, locked it securely. Royce apologized and begged for forgiveness. She smiled at him. She had a smile that would light up cities. She was so gloriously beautiful that she could hear her killer's heart stutter: so he was still attracted to her, even in his terror. How perfectly wonderful. She had been a soft girl in life, soft of body and soft of heart. But she was hard as flint now, and in a theatrical mood to boot. Inspired, she pulled a tub of rouge from her purse and daubed Royce with it. He cried so hard that the tears ran down his face in streams. She made up his lips and cheeks, and then rimmed his already-red eyes with the stuff until it nearly blinded him. Then she forced the emasculated and humiliated Royce to dance with the dead guards while she tapped out the rhythms with her dainty foot. She smiled at him as he struggled under the weight of the massive corpses. After many hours, when he collapsed from exhaustion, she simply picked him up and forced him to go on dancing. When he could not continue, she held him in her arms and led him through the steps of the waltz, the tango, the rumba. She pressed his head against her heart so that he could hear its silence. When he begged her to just kill him and get it over with, she only smiled.

For hours he went on dancing with the dead guards who were now beginning to stink. This vault was rarely opened. The guards weren't missed. Neither was Royce, who had disappeared before. It was thirty-one sleepless hours before she finally put him out of his misery, something he had not even had the courtesy to do for her. She gave him every punishment she had inflicted on his friends: a collapsed throat, vibrant bruises, hundreds of broken bones. Eventually, she removed her wedding gown and, with delicate fingers, pushed it so far back into his throat that he gagged. Finally, suffocated by ivory silk and bile, he died.

Then she left. It was nighttime again by now, and no one saw her go. She dragged the rotting guards out of the building and left them in an alley, but she locked the vault with Royce still in it. He would be found in a few days, or a week perhaps.

She hadn't said a single word. Not to George, not to Henry, not to Robert, and certainly not to Royce. She couldn't risk breathing enough to talk.

All of this was what Edward saw when his sister returned. He might as well have been there himself, using his own fingers to break those men. Rosalie's memories were vivid and lifelike, and when she rejoined the Cullens, she could think of nothing else.

When asked by Carlisle where she had been the last few days, Rosalie answered that she'd needed a run to clear her head, that she had gone east around Lake Ontario. Carlisle and Esme accepted this and went out of the house to spend time alone. Edward stood and stared at her in horror.

"Rosalie," he said haltingly, and had no idea how to go on. She stared at him defiantly for half a second before her expression shattered and she allowed herself to collapse. Edward caught her before she struck the floor, and they stayed like that some time, hunched together, both of them lost in her memories.

"Why does it still hurt?" she whimpered. "Oh, Edward, I thought if I killed them the pain would go away, but it only hurts more. What do I _do?_"

"I know, little sister," he said, soft and low. He brushed her hair out of her eyes and stroked her back, just as Esme had done when he returned from his criminal years abroad. He was in no position to judge Rosalie; if not for his promise to Esme, he would have murdered Rosalie's assailants himself, long ago. Besides, she was in such agony that for the first time Edward realized just how little he had to be sorry for. "It's alright, Rosie, it's going to be alright," he whispered. "We're going to leave here. We'll never come back to this place. I know you don't think you'll ever be happy again, but you will, I promise. This will heal." He could hear her wanting to sleep, to cry, to forget. And he knew she never would.

When Edward informed Carlisle and Esme the next morning that he wanted to leave Rochester, they asked him why.

"I'm ready for a change," he said, and that was all. They were in Tennessee by the following afternoon.

* * *

That night, I dreamed about Edward Cullen. When I woke, I couldn't remember much other than his ghostly pale skin and his dark eyes, which faded from black to gold to black again. My head was pounding when I sat up, but I didn't feel too bad aside from that. I popped a handful of ibuprofen along with my breakfast of fried eggs and whole wheat toast, and by the time I was pulling into the parking lot at school, I felt more or less normal.

The parking lot had been thoroughly salted in the night, and the temperature had risen as well, so there was no more danger from ice-related car accidents. But I found myself the center of attention, and I didn't like it one bit. Almost before I had climbed out of my car, Jessica and Mike were at my side, spraying me with questions.

"Oh my god, Bella!" Jessica said. "I can't even believe what happened! Are you okay?"

"Totally fine," I mumbled. "I just need a little peace and quiet." She didn't take the hint. She and Mike babbled together as they led the way into school. Luckily I didn't have to pay them much attention; they weren't listening to me anyway. Everyone at school was talking about an upcoming dance. Sadie Hawkins, which I thought was pretty old-timey even for this outdated town. Like, what was the Women's Lib movement all about if not things like this? But everyone was pretty excited. Jessica had asked Mike—of course—and he had responded enthusiastically. I could see it was only a matter of time before they were joined at the lip.

"Bella!" called a deep voice from behind me. I turned to see Tyler hurrying up to me, his face still scraped up pretty badly. "Bella, I'm so glad I caught you. Listen, I feel really bad about what happened, I was driving too fast and I couldn't swerve in time—"

"It's fine, Tyler," I said wearily. "You were hurt way worse than I was."

"I promise I'll make it up to you," he said nervously. "Listen, that dance is coming up. I was wondering if you...ifyouwantedtogo?" he finished in a rush. His whole head turned a darker, redder shade of brown and he avoided meeting my eyes.

"Oh," I said in surprise. Was he trying to make up for almost making mincemeat of me, or did he genuinely want to go out with me? Oh lord, I hadn't even thought of that. Was it possible Tyler had a _thing_ for me? I looked at him with a little more interest. He wasn't bad-looking, not by a long shot. Underneath all those shallow cuts and abrasions, he had the sort of dark caramel-colored skin that never seemed to have a bump or a spot. And he had pretty eyes, too. Honestly, if I'd never met the mysterious Edward Cullen, I probably would have said yes without a second thought.

Except I _had_ met Edward Cullen, and I couldn't undo that. Tyler was handsome and cool and he knew how to get along with other humans, but as far as I could tell, he wasn't a ninja at all. Not even a little bit. Or a secret agent. And, if I was being totally, brutally honest with myself, there was an even more shallow reason for my attraction to Edward. He was _just that hot_. Mystery is all very well, but he could have been as dull as dishwater and I still would have found myself drawn to him. He was just so...so _tall_. Wow. I really was a piece of work, wasn't I?

"I'm sorry," I said apologetically. "I'm going to be in Seattle that weekend." Total lie, although I would probably go now that I'd brought it up. Tyler's face fell. Okay, possibly he did like me a little bit. "Listen, I really am sorry," I said. "But honestly, we are totally even. You didn't hurt me. I mean, you actually got me out of school for a whole day!"

"Yeah," said Tyler, smiling weakly. "I guess I did." And he walked away.

"Ummmm," said a voice over my shoulder. I jumped. I hadn't even realized Jessica was still here. "Did Tyler Crowley just _ask you out?_" I nodded. "And you turned him _down?_" she asked in disbelief. I nodded again. "Jeez, Bella," she said, shaking her head. "Your funeral. Tyler's dreamy." I looked at her in surprise.

"What about Mike?" I asked.

"Oh, Mike's dreamy too," she said quickly. "But he's off the market."

_Or will be soon,_ I thought.

"I was talking about for _you,_" she added.

"I'm just not into Tyler that way," I said. "Besides, I am literally the crappiest dancer on all of Planet Earth. And anyway, I'm in Seattle that day, so I can't go with anyone."

"I bet you'd go with Edward Cullen," Jessica said with a wink, looking over my shoulder. I couldn't help myself: I had to turn and look. And there he was, walking with Rosalie and Emmett. The three of them looked impossibly perfect. Emmett had his muscular arm draped over Rosalie's shoulders, and they laughed excitedly as they walked. Edward moved with impeccable posture and still somehow managed to look completely casual and natural. And they were all utterly, hopelessly beautiful. They were dressed more tastefully than your average Upper East Sider.

Edward's eyes flitted over to me and then back to his siblings. I felt my heart leap in response.

Pathetic.

There was a certain tension in the weeks that followed. Edward and I talked politely, but the ease that had so struck me in our first conversation was gone. And he had gone back to sitting as far away from me as possible in Bio lab. He didn't look like he wanted to shank me anymore, but he didn't look like he wanted to chat, either. His hands were almost always balled up into fists under the table. Sometimes, when I sneaked peeks at his well-shaped forearms and white knuckles, I suspected that he was stronger than he looked. We only talked about our labs; no personal stuff at all. He was acting almost cold to me.

No, scratch that: he was _definitely _acting cold to me. He never touched me at all. Once or twice I would try to nudge him playfully in an attempt to warm him up, but he always somehow sidled out of reach and I was left feeling foolish and rejected. Before long, I stopped trying, and we both ignored each other equally.

* * *

In the mountains outside Gatlinburg, in 1935, Edward hunted with his family. Unbelievably, Rosalie's coming had improved his life, despite the unmistakably dark tenor of her thoughts. She still resisted her vampire nature, just as Edward had in the years after his own transformation. And she still never smiled. But this only made him more determined to help her. They would spend long hours together, her flexible alto accompanying his piano playing. Sometimes, she would even forget to be miserable.

Right now, in fact, Rosalie Hale was happier than she'd ever been since she was alive.

"He's terrifically handsome," she enthused as they sprinted through the undergrowth. Her mind alit on a memory of the young man she'd just met on the other side of the mountain. "His name is Emmett. He's a farmer. Isn't that wonderful?"

"Yes, it is," said Edward bemusedly. Since when did the elegant Rosalie go for farmers? Hell, since when did she go for any man at all? When last he'd checked, he and Carlisle were the only men she could bear to be around. And Edward was the only one she liked.

"He likes to go camping in the mountains," she bubbled on. "I was worried at first, because I'd just had a bear, but the bloodlust really wasn't too awful! Anyhow, I would never want to hurt Emmett. He must be the handsomest man I've ever seen. No offense."

"Of course."

And then she went off on a dream-spree, imagining herself in the arms of the curly-headed farmboy, forgetting Edward entirely. He was happy for her; it was easy enough to see what was happening. He remembered that it had been very much the same with Esme. One minute, she had liked the doctor as a valued and treasured friend. The next minute, she's been earth-shatteringly in love with him. Edward had even been in the room when it happened, though he'd made an excuse to leave right away. He'd wandered for days in the countryside around Ashland, hunting whenever he crossed something that smelled acceptable. When he'd returned, Carlisle and Esme had made their announcement. And Edward had been truly, deeply happy for them. But he couldn't help feeling shut out.

And now he would be shut out again. He wondered how it would happen. From Rosalie's memories, he knew that she had talked to Emmett for only a few minutes. He had been chivalrous in the way that only a southern farmboy can be, and of course he had responded enthusiastically—but respectfully—to her smiles. Would Rosalie track his scent to find out where he lived? She had splendid self-control, although she was barely past her first year as a vampire. Perhaps she would pretend to be lost and knock on his door for directions. Perhaps she would ask Carlisle to move them into Emmett's neighborhood. He would do it, of course; he would do anything for Rosalie, he felt so guilty.

After a while, Edward realized that Rosalie's thoughts had vanished from his mind while he was fretting over the future. She'd followed a different trail into the forest.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! This should be brutally obvious, but if you want to read this story but are not interested in my author's notes, then _don't read my author's notes_. My A/Ns are not load-bearing; the story I've written will not fall apart if you don't read the commentary. It is up to you to determine whether reading my critiques of _Twilight_ will enhance or detract from your experience, and act accordingly. If you disagree with me on the actual critiques, and review or PM me under your username, I am happy to read your point of view and respectfully respond with my own. If your only disagreement is that you don't understand why I am doing this when I object to so much of the source material, then you should either re-read the A/N from the first chapter (where I explain in detail why I am critiquing the series) or else just accept that sometimes people do weird things that are not easy for everyone to understand. If your disagreement is that you don't feel a stranger on the Internet should criticize a thing you personally love, then there is nothing for me to say other than Hey! Welcome to planet Earth!_  
_**


	7. One More Thing to Get Used To

**Thanks to my reviewers, especially the ones that spark fun talks! You know who you are ;**

* * *

It was a full month before Edward spoke to me about anything more than our Bio labs. I'd given up trying to engage him, and mostly just amused myself during class when all our work was complete.

Today, we had finished our lab way ahead of schedule. I had almost half a class period to kill, and I sure as heck wasn't going to waste it trying to get Edward to talk to me like a normal person. Instead I took out a notebook and the play we were reading in English, _Romeo and Juliet_. The class had been assigned an essay on "Forms of Id in Romeo and Juliet" earlier that day. Might as well get a jump on it.

I was busy outlining my essay when I heard the quiet clearing of a throat. Disbelievingly I looked away from my scribbled paragraph on impetuousness and the stupidity of teenagers to find Edward staring at me. His eyes, which I had avoided looking at for several weeks now, had changed color again. Today, they were an even lighter golden color than before, like the IPAs my dad drank.

"Yes?" I said, surprise taking the intended edge out of my voice.

"Are you..." he said tentatively. "Are you working on the essay for Mr. Mason's class?"

"Yes," I said. Then I looked back at my work. Then, because I was a pathetic sap, I put down my pen and looked back up at Edward. He appeared a little more sympathetic today. Almost even apologetic.

"I haven't started it yet," he said cautiously. "Maybe we could work on it together. I have the same assignment. I'm in the other class." _Obviously_, Edward. There were only two junior English classes in this dinky school.

"So, what, you're talking to me now?" I said. I didn't mean to be snappish, but seriously. What the hell was his game? One minute he was ignoring me...or being downright pissy...and the next minute he was offering to be friends. I was getting whiplash!

His lips twitched and I got the feeling he was trying not to smile. Or smirk, more likely. "I guess I am," he said. "I probably shouldn't, but...I have problems with control when it comes to you, Bella Swan."

That drew me up short. What on earth did _that_ mean? What, was he an abuser or something?

"Okay," I said. "I want you to explain to me, in detail, what you mean by that. Because frankly it sounded like a threat." Was it bad that I didn't care _what_ he said, so long as he was paying attention to me? Maybe I should change my _Romeo and Juliet_ essay to reflect that _all_ teenagers are morons, not just Renaissance Verona-ans.

"I didn't mean it like that," he muttered, looking down at his hands. "But you probably should stay away from me anyway." I huffed impatiently and folded my arms. Edward looked up at me and I was struck by how vulnerable he looked, his eyebrows raised imploringly, his golden eyes wide and pleading. I'd never seen such an expression on his face before—or on anyone else's, actually. He looked perfectly torn, precisely caught between hope and misery. "I'm not a very good person, Bella," he said weakly. "I always hurt everyone. I was just trying not to hurt you too. I thought if I left you alone..."

Suddenly it struck me: all those times I'd thought he hated _me_, I was wrong. It wasn't me he loathed at all. It was himself. It was plain as day right now, written on his face in bold letters. He really thought he was a terrible person. Maybe he didn't even believe he deserved to be happy.

I could relate to that easily enough. I'd always been of a morose and introspective bent, myself.

"Hey, hey, hey," I said, all my anger completely forgotten. I would have said anything to clean that look from his face. "I'm sorry I was prying. I really didn't mean to. I just...I mean, look at it from my perspective. You're really weird, Edward." He flinched and looked away again. "No, it's okay," I said hurriedly. "I'm weird too. Besides, you're only seventeen. You can't be _all that _awful."

It turns out that was the wrong thing to say, because a shutter suddenly seemed to fall over his eyes and his face turned as hard as stone. My breath caught at how quickly the transformation had occurred: I hadn't merely angered him with my thoughtless comment, I had actually caused him to shut down with rage. I put my hand out to touch his arm, but he jerked it out of my way. He didn't look at me or return my conversation for the rest of the period. By the end of it, I was angry again. I may have been a thoughtless, plain-looking goose, but I certainly didn't deserve to be treated like a piece of crap. I mean, _he _was the one who talked to _me_. I was only trying to help!

When the bell rang, Edward vanished as quickly as he always did. I took my time, very deliberately packing away my books and walking toward Gym. I had no idea what had just happened. It had seemed like the old Edward, the Edward who had joked with me that one day in Bio, would resurface, and maybe we could be friends again. And then he had gotten all weird. _Again_.

Edward was more of an enigma than ever. Stick an introspective teenage girl like me in a room with a gorgeous mystery like Edward, and you were sure of some troubled dreams.

I didn't know him at all.

But oh, how I wanted to.

* * *

Yet again, Edward heard the dying thoughts of a stranger.

"Carlisle!" Rosalie screamed as she barrelled up the path toward their rustic home. "Carlisle, I need you!" _Emmett Emmett Emmett Emmett Emmett_, her thoughts wailed.

_Is this heaven?_ thought the blood-soaked, brutalized man in her arms. He was massive. Underneath the blood, Edward could see his dark brown curls, a dimple in his wan cheek.

"Rosalie...?" said Edward nervously.

"Out of my way, Edward," she said frantically. "Where's Carlisle?"

"I'm here," said Carlisle, racing through the back door. He stopped short when he saw the ravaged man Rosalie had placed on the kitchen table. _Merciful heavens_, he thought. _It's too late for this one._

"Change him, Carlisle, I can't do it, I'm not strong enough," said Rosalie in a rush.

"I don't think he's—"

"_Change him!_" screamed Rosalie, her face deranged with fear. "Do it, Carlisle! You _owe_ me!"

"Y-yes," said Carlisle faintly. Rosalie stayed just long enough to watch Carlisle bend over the dying man. Then she grabbed Edward's hand and dragged him outside.

"Listen to him, Edward," she said. "Make sure he does it. Please, please, Edward. If he doesn't do this for me I'll...I'll _die_." Edward believed her. So, holding his breath, he crept around the side of the house and crouched there, listening in on Carlisle's brain, seeing what he saw. Dimly he heard Esme go out to Rosalie and try to comfort her, but he didn't pay this any attention, not even when Rosalie swore and shouted to be left alone.

For fifty-one hours Edward sat motionless. He didn't move until he heard Emmett's heart stop. He heard Carlisle's sigh of relief. He heard the thoughts that were becoming all too familiar: Emmett was in pain. He was burning. Not his body anymore; just his throat.

Edward stood up and was startled to see that Rosalie was standing only a few yards away, far enough from the window that the smell of blood couldn't reach her even if she did accidentally inhale. Edward nodded at her. She didn't bother to go by the door: the glass had not even finished shattering over the sill before Rosalie was beside Emmett, holding him tightly in her arms and rocking back and forth in relief.

_Rosie_, thought Emmett. Edward winced: she had told Emmett the pet name that so far only Edward had ever dared to use. This was it, the end of their closeness. Edward couldn't stand it anymore. Everyone said that vampires don't change, but they were _wrong_, everything was changing _all the time_, nobody stayed just for him, nobody ever would. He sprinted away and didn't stop until the sun had almost set. He curled up under a tree in some nameless forest and wished he could die. Rosalie had only been a vampire for _two years_ and she had already found her mate. From Emmett's thoughts, Edward could tell her adoration was more than returned. Everyone had a mate but him. They were all full of a joy that he had never known, that he was convinced he never _would_ know.

"Edward?" He felt a gentle hand on his hair and looked up.

"Mom," he whispered. Esme sank to her knees and gathered him in her arms as she had so many times before.

_You've never called me that before,_ she thought, holding him close. _Tell me what's wrong, my darling_.

"I always get left behind," said Edward, ashamed of how very _seventeen_ he sounded. The thirty-four-year old Edward would not surface tonight. He was just a sad, weak child. He hated himself for it.

But Esme didn't. She loved him at every age.

"You will never be left behind," she said gently, lifting his face to look in his eyes.

"My father always left me behind," he said. "The war left me behind. My mother..." His voice cracked, a rare occasion for a vampire. "She didn't mean to leave me behind, but she didn't have a choice." And then he couldn't say any more. It hurt too much to talk. It hurt too much even to think. But Esme understood at once. Esme _always _understood.

"Edward," she said kindly but firmly. "Listen to me, my son. Listen to my voice, listen to my thoughts, and recognize that every word I say to you is iron law." Obediently Edward looked up at her. "You _will never be left behind_," she said. "Not by us, not ever by our choice. Falling in love with Carlisle did not make me love you less. It showed me how to cherish you more. Rosalie is your sister, and she will always be your sister. I don't have to be a mind-reader to understand that her love for you is eternal, that it will always grow and never lessen. This world is an unpredictable place. I know that you are afraid. It is forgivable to be afraid; perhaps you are even _right _to be afraid. But believe me, even through your fear, that we will _never stop loving you_. Do you understand me, Edward?"

Unwillingly, Edward nodded. He could not stop being afraid. He felt like he would always fear the loneliness that had chased him through both life and death. In the beginning, trapped with only a sire that he didn't particularly like, he'd had nothing to lose; the loneliness had at least been familiar. He had everything to lose now. Being happy came at such a high risk.

"Now, Edward," said Esme, pulling him to his feet. "Your sister needs you. And so does your new brother."

Edward nodded once. Then, keeping pace with his mother, he ran home.

* * *

I stewed all evening over my conversation with Edward. I reviewed his every word while I gathered peppers and chicken and masa from the fridge. I analyzed his every expression as I sauteed garlic and onions on the stove. I wondered what he was thinking as I diced up chicken and tossed it in the pot.

Just as I was stirring the sauce into the chicken, it occurred to me. _You should stay away from me_, he'd said. Well, okay. He could see that I was kind of sort of obsessed with him. He wasn't interested, but he was too nice to tell me outright. Why hadn't I seen that before? It was so _obvious_.

And why _should _he like me? I was nothing to sneeze at, certainly. I may not have been terrifically beautiful, but I was cute enough. I was smart, or at least _I_ thought so. I could even be funny on occasion, provided my audience weren't too discerning. But I was nothing to _him_. He had everything; why would he want a nothing like me?

I resolved to stop thinking about Edward Cullen. Maybe I _would_ take Tyler up on his invitation. Maybe I'd find a hot older guy in Seattle. Maybe I'd...maybe I'd...

"Bells?" called Charlie. "Is something burning?"

"No, Dad," I said, turning off the stove and pulling out plates. "It's cooking, not burning. Cooking is what happens when you're tired of eating microwave meals. Here, pop a squat, I've got a plate for you."

Charlie looked surprised but pleased as he obeyed. We ate in silence for a while, and then I asked him about his day. He looked even more surprised by this, but answered congenially enough. Then, after a pause, he asked me about my day. We were really getting good at this whole "conversation" business.

"Oh, hey, Dad?" I said as I was clearing up. "I'm going to drive to Seattle a week from Saturday. If you have no objections."

"What, by yourself?" he asked.

"I'm by myself most of the time," I answered. His face fell; I guessed he felt guilty and hurried to reassure him. "I like being alone, Dad, honestly. Trust me, I was like this in Phoenix, too."

"Well, what if you get lost?" he pressed.

"Then I'll read a map."

"What if you get in trouble?"

"Are you offering to buy me a cell phone?" I asked hopefully. Charlie laughed at the expression on my face.

"We'll see," he said. "Maybe for Christmas." Oooh, that was soon! I'd have to start dropping hints about the models I had my eye on.

"Um, isn't there some kind of dance...thing...at school that night?" Charlie asked. "You wouldn't be able to go and get back in time for that." Jeez, how did he even know about that? I really needed a break from this two-horse town.

"That's why I'm going, Dad." He looked confused, opened his mouth and then shut it again. He scratched his head. "I dance like you," I explained.

At once his face cleared and he burst into laughter. "Got it," he said. "Have fun. Don't run out of gas. Here, I'll get the dishes, you cooked." Still chuckling, he cleared the table. I renewed my relief at having a dad who let me do pretty much whatever I wanted. Luckily I never wanted to do anything other than read and navel-gaze. The perfect teenage daughter.

* * *

In 1936, Edward raced against Emmett through the woods around Forks, WA. Edward won against his new brother about a third of the time, and even he knew that was mostly due to his unfair advantage.

"Fare thee well, little one!" taunted Emmett as he put on a burst of speed.

"Fine words!" called Edward, falling behind but struggling to regain the lead. "I'm older than you! You're the little one!"

_Everyone's little to me_, thought Emmett smugly, his mental voice already fading as the gap between him and Edward widened. Edward was about to shout out a witty rejoinder when an unfamiliar voice intruded on his thoughts.

_East_, thought the voice. _The smaller one's in my sights. Quil, you take the giant!_

"What?" Edward muttered to himself. He hadn't smelled any humans nearby, or vampires. There was nothing to smell out here but the herd of deer they'd passed some distance back, and what smelled like wolves a little way to the west. He dug in his heels and came to an abrupt halt, listening carefully.

What happened next would have given him a heart attack if he'd still been human: something huge and hairy and definitely neither human _nor_ vampire went rocketing past him. It dug in just as he had and then shot back at him. Edward only had a moment to realize the thing wanted to _attack _him before he crouched down and then sprang high into the trees. This was bad. Whatever this was, it was very, very bad.

"Em!" he shouted. "Get back to the others!" He tried to infuse his voice with as much warning as possible; the last thing he wanted was for Emmett to get taken unawares.

The thing was jumping around the base of his tree. "Emmett, get back to Carlisle!" Edward screamed. He could hear a thrashing from Emmett's direction and prayed it was just his brother returning to their house outside of town. If anything happened to Emmett out here...well, Edward wouldn't even have time to feel regret before Rosalie tore his head off. _Not that_, he thought in a panic. _Emmett'll be all right. He's still got newborn blood in him. Nothing can catch Emmett._

The thing was leaping higher and higher, and Edward could hear others circling closer. He tried to get a good look at it, but it was moving too fast. That in itself was odd; _nothing_ could move too fast for Edward's vampire eyes to follow. This thing almost made him feel like a human again, it was so swift and so powerful. He could feel his tree swaying dangerously low as the beast rammed against it.

Enough of this. Edward leaped lithely from his tree to the next one over, and then the next. He would have to hope Emmett had made it to safety. All he could do now was think of his own escape from...whatever this thing was.

It seemed like an age before he left the creature behind, although it took only about ten minutes. He made his way through the trees to the beach, and then took a wild chance and leaped to the gravel-strewn ground. The thing was on him almost before he could react, but he twisted and threw it off, giving him just enough time to hurl himself over a cliff and into the surf below.

Thrashed about by the waves, he had room for only two thoughts: First: Emmett had better be all right, and the rest of his family as well, or there would be hell to pay. And second: if he didn't know better he would almost think that creature was a _wolf_.

* * *

The next day, I parked as far from Edward's BMW as I could. I didn't want to run into him and say something stupid. I didn't want him to get the impression that I _liked_ him. Because I didn't.

No, really.

Fumbling to lock the Thing behind me, my keys slipped from my fingers and landed, predictably enough, in a dirty puddle.

"Awesome," I muttered, bending to retrieve them. But before my fingers could even unflex, a long-fingered white hand snatched the keys out of the puddle and presented them to me with a flourish.

"Madam," said Edward, grinning his crooked grin.

"Dammit, Edward, what _is_ it with you?" I burst out. His grin fell as quickly as though I'd slapped him and I felt instantly remorseful.

"What's what?" he asked, sounding wounded.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I didn't mean to snap. You just startled me, that's all. I never know where you're going to pop up."

"I'm not a _wizard_, Bella," he said, his lips twitching. "You just don't pay attention."

Hardly. When it came to Edward Cullen, I couldn't seem to _stop_ paying attention.

"Oh, go ahead," I sighed, still looking at his perfect lips. "You can laugh at me. Might as well."

"I wasn't going to laugh _at_ you," he said, smiling innocently. "I was planning to laugh _with_ you."

"I'm not laughing," I said pointedly.

"Well, you should get right on that," he said. "It's very good for you. I would know, my dad's a doctor."

I couldn't help but let out a reluctant giggle. He was being very adorable today.

"Hey," I said, grabbing his shoulder and spinning him to face me. He looked at me warily. "Your eyes are way yellow today. Do you have, like, mood ring contacts or what?"

"Beg pardon?" he asked.

"Well, usually when you're being nice to me your eyes are a lot lighter." Edward looked shiftily away. "What?" I asked. "Am I wrong?"

"Oh, no," he said, still avoiding my gaze, "you're not wrong. You're just...a little inconvenient."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. "What, do I cramp your style? Because you know, _you're_ the one who—"

"No, no," he said, holding up his hands. "I mean you are inconveniently perceptive."

"Psh," I said, tossing my hair. "Two seconds ago you were making fun of me for being _not_ perceptive. Make up your mind, smartypants."

"I'm trying," he said, laughing again. "You won't even let me get a word in!" I had to smile as we walked into school. Knowing about his mood-ring contacts was going to be helpful, I could tell. I'd never seen him so jolly.

"Okay," I said. "What's on your mind, Edward?"

"Well," he said, and I must have been smoking crack that morning because he almost sounded _nervous_. "Um, I heard through the ubiquitous grapevine that you were going to Seattle this weekend, presumably to avoid socializing with your peers."

"I never said that!" I protested. Darn it, why did he always have to read my mind?

"Right, whatever," he said, chuckling. "Um, I was wondering if you wanted a ride."

I stared at him dumbly.

"You know, like...to Seattle," he prodded.

I stared even _more_ dumbly.

"Right," he said, raking his fingers through his hair and looking down the hallway. "Well, um, never mind. I'll see you in Bio." He started to walk away. The sight of those dark-wash jeans hugging his perfect ass snapped me out of my stupor. I ran after him and grabbed his hand. He jerked when I touched him—or maybe that was me. Did he have perpetual frostbite or what?

"I'm sorry, my brain just shut off for a second there," I said. "Um, are you saying you want to go to Seattle with me?"

"That was sort of the idea, yes," he said wryly.

"I thought you didn't want to be friends."

"Doesn't mean we can't be enemies," he offered hopefully. "We could be enemies in Seattle, for example."

"Are you gonna just be all weird again?" I asked, struggling to make my brain think of something intelligent and suave to say—or, failing that, to at least be smart enough to protect itself.

"I will if you will," he said, waggling his eyebrows at me. Hardly a resounding _no_.

"Well, okay then," I said.

The corner of his mouth lifted. "Is that a yes?"

"Yeah, it's a yes," I said, trying and failing to sound like impossible Adonises asked me to go with them to Seattle all the time. "So...see you in Bio?"

"Yes," he said, looking pleased. Neither of us made a move to go to class. I couldn't tear my eyes from his spectacular face. And he, for some reason, couldn't seem to stop looking at my gross boring one.

"Okay," I said at last.

"Okay," he said. Then he grinned one last time and left.

* * *

**This note will be relevant throughout much of the story, and there will be a lot of changes based on what I'm about to say, but I'm only going to post this once so I don't repeat myself later on.**

**I think this is the chapter where Edward says, "The wasting of our planet's finite resources is everyone's business, Bella," as a way of getting her to let him drive her to Seattle. And it pisses me right off, as does the endless praising of Carlisle's extreme virtue and goodness, just because he's...a doctor who doesn't actively murder his patients. Or something? I can't tell what it is he does, other than not murdering, which is supposed to be so above-average. Let's even assume that the Cullens give generously to charitable organizations. With the amount they have left over to pile up in the neglected corners of their mansion, they clearly don't give enough.**

**If the Cullens _really_ cared about doing right by this planet, they wouldn't consistently feed on vulnerable local predator populations, and they wouldn't drive a bunch of cars they don't need just because "vampires like to go fast," and they would actually make an effort to improve the planet they live on. I mean, money is power! With their incomparable wealth the Cullens could counter the unlimited greed and influence of the fossil fuels lobby; they could buy up vast swaths of earth endangered by the palm, logging and oil industries, allowing the land to rebound. They could back alternative power companies, they could donate to civil rights- and humanitarian relief, they could support small-time fruit and vegetable farmers who have to contend with government-subsidized soy and corn operations, thereby bringing down the cost of healthy food for the average American and dramatically improving the quality of land in America's breadbasket. These things wouldn't even require effort; all they would have to do is give money, which they all agree they have too much of in the first place.**

**Or they can sit around and judge people like Bella who can't afford the vast array of lifestyle choices that are available to them. And the reason the rest of us can't afford a damn soap box, Edward? Because _you people_ are sitting on all of our nation's resources while us normals struggle to get by without succumbing to cancer and obesity and racial profiling and a toilet economy that wealth-hoarding little shits like you dumped on us in the first place. Thanks a lot, you cond****escending, coercive hypocrite. You're _soo _right, _we're _the wasteful ones.**

**There are a lot of ways to be good in this world. As far as I can tell, the Cullens don't do any of them.**


	8. Concessions

"It's their territory," said Carlisle to his assembled family. "We ought to abide by their wishes. It's only fair that they request our departure."

"Carlisle, we're just getting settled in," said Rosalie. _Emmett likes it here_, she thought. It was true: Edward had heard the same though from Emmett himself. He liked being close to abundant wildlife—including his favorite, bears—while being far away from large groups of humans. The natives did not have the same alluring scent that most humans did. They smelled edible enough—more edible than bears, certainly—but not so tempting that the vampires were likely to forget themselves. Not if they were careful.

"I'm sorry, Rosalie," said Carlisle. _It would be wrong. We should not do this to them_.

"What if we talked to them?" asked Rosalie. "What if we showed them we're not like the others? I've never touched a single drop of human blood! I'm safe, Carlisle. We're _happy_ here. Esme's almost done with the house. Please don't make us move so soon."

"Well..." said Carlisle hesitantly.

"Cary," said Esme, laying her hand along his arm. "We could at least talk to them. Show them we are different. Even if we still have to leave, perhaps it is still best that they know we are different. Maybe someday we can come back." _And I can complete the house_, she thought wistfully. Edward could hear the longing in her thoughts. This house represented the culmination of Esme's craft, honed these fifteen years. A large house, a mansion really, much of the bottom sided with glass and the top half sprouting balconies. It was the very essence of modern, Art Deco design, and she was proud of it. Edward could tell she didn't want to leave it unfinished. The ability to work with so breakable a substance as glass without destroying it made Esme so happy. It gave her hope, and anything that gave his mother hope gave Edward hope, too.

"What do you think, Emmett?" Carlisle asked, turning to his newest son.

Emmett shrugged. "We can go if you want," he said amiably. _I hope we can stay,_ he thought. _It feels like home. And Rosalie likes it here._

"Edward?" Carlisle said at last, turning to his first-sired.

Edward considered. Carlisle was not merely asking for Edward's individual opinion; he knew that Edward was privy to everyone else's thoughts. His answer would carry a great deal of weight.

"I think we should try talking to them," he said carefully. "But only if we can do so safely. I like it here too," he said, looking apologetically at Rosalie and Esme, "but I don't want to lose anyone just because we were too proud to move. And believe me, these wolves are truly a danger, especially if we underestimate them."

_Thank you, Edward,_ thought Rosalie gratefully.

_Thanks, Ed,_ thought Emmett.

_Thank you, my darling,_ thought Esme.

_I hope you know what we're getting into,_ thought Carlisle.

* * *

I walked to English in a daze. I didn't even realize I was tardy until Mr. Mason cleared his throat pointedly at me and then shook his head.

"Sorry," I said, blushing. I raced down my row, tripped over a backpack, and tumbled into my seat. Then I sank as far down in my chair as I could; everyone was looking at me. God, why was I such a clown? And had Edward Cullen seriously just asked me...kind of sort of _out?_

That was the thought that consumed me all morning. I couldn't pay attention to anything. All I could think about was Edward waggling his thick eyebrows, Edward picking up my keys, Edward smiling that mind-blowing smile...

"Good lord, Bella!" Jessica exclaimed as we walked to lunch. "You are being like, way spacey today. What is even your _deal?_"

"I, um..." I said, my eyes scanning the table in the corner. I slumped with disappointment to see that only four Cullens were seated there, as usual more interested in their chatter than their food.

"Never mind," said Jessica. "Listen, I'm gonna to go jump off a bridge. Coming?"

"Yeah," I agreed, "be right there." Jessica sighed and patted my shoulder and walked away.

I was just wondering if I had the balls to go up to the Beautiful People and ask where their brother had gone when I saw him. He was sitting alone at a different table, kitty-corner from his siblings. As soon as I located him, his face lit up and he gestured to me. Almost like he was happy to see me, or more likely on drugs. When had Forks turned into Imaginationland? Was there LSD in the over-abundant water here?

I walked over to his table without tripping over one single thing, although I did sort of miss the table with my books. Just before they went crashing to the ground, Edward's hand shot out and he rescued them. That seemed to be his jam, really.

"Do your friends mind if I borrow you today?" he asked, standing until I had gracelessly seated myself.

I looked over at Jessica and Angela, who were both sneaking glances at me and grinning behind their hands. Angela shot me a surreptitious thumbs-up. I turned back to Edward with a smile. "I guess not," I said.

We sat in silence for a few moments. I played with a mechanical pencil, clicking it until almost all the lead was exposed and then pushing it back in. I couldn't quite bring myself to look at him. Every time I did, I ended up saying something infantile.

"So, um," I said, still staring at my pencil, "this is unusual."

"Yeah," he said, "I figured if I'm going to hell I should do it properly."

This made me look up to see if he was joking, but he actually looked serious. Uh oh, was he going to go all weird again? I didn't know if I could handle another Edward Cullen Spiral of Pain. His eyes stayed the same pale ochre though, so I figured I was in the clear.

"Okay, well, that was cryptic," I said. "Jeez, Edward, what _are_ you?"

His eyes tightened and he looked nervously across the cafeteria. I followed his eyeline to the table where his siblings sat and got the weirdest feeling that they'd all just been looking at us, although they seemed deep in conversation at the moment. "What do you mean by that?" he asked tensely.

"Well," I said, trying hard not to become frustrated by his mini-mood-swing, "let's see." I started to tick off on my fingers: "You hate me, then you want to be friends. You save my life using— as far as I can tell—magic, and then you won't even take credit for it. You tell me we shouldn't be friends, then you ask if I want to spend a whole day with you in another city. Also," I threw in as a joke, "your hands are like, always freezing."

He didn't seem to think my joke was very funny. His eyes narrowed and then flickered back over at his siblings' table. "And _you_ have let your imagination run away with you again," he said, affecting an unnatural lightness.

"With my soft, feminine brain?" I asked pointedly. This got a real smile from him.

"I didn't mean it like that, Miss Morland," he said. "Okay, why don't you play detective? Tell me what you think I am."

I blushed and looked down. I didn't want to admit that I'd actually given this way too much thought over the last few weeks.

"I don't want to say," I mumbled.

"Aww, come on!" he wheedled. "Please?" He batted his eyelashes theatrically.

"We-ell," I said hesitantly, "I do have one theory." He waited expectantly. "Were you by any chance bitten..." his eyes widened in what seemed like alarm "...by a radioactive spider?" He burst out laughing.

"You caught me!" he chuckled. "Wow, first try and everything!"

"Aww, come on," I said, popping the lid off my lemonade and taking a swig. "I really want to know. No way are you Spiderman, red's not your color."

"Ouch," he commented.

"That means you can't be Superman, either," I said. "I guess you could be Batman. I don't really know any other superheroes, so it'd better be one of those three or I'll never get it."

"Huh," he said, using his forefinger to drag my lemonade cap around the table in a wide arc. "You're sort of barking up the wrong tree, Bella." Oh god! Oh god ohgodohgod...

"You mean you're _gay?_" I shrieked, louder than I meant to. A few students looked over at us, startled, and then giggled. Edward looked horrified at my outburst.

"What?" he exclaimed. "No! Wait, _what?_"

My heart had gone into overdrive for a second there. Oh god, I was in _way_ over my head here. "Um, not that there's anything wrong with that?" I said sheepishly.

"Jesus, Bella, no, I'm not gay. Good grief, I don't even know how to take that." He looked back over at his siblings' table, and I couldn't resist looking too. This time there was no mistaking it: they were all laughing openly at us. No way did they hear what I said, though; they were all the way across the cafeteria. They must be laughing at something else.

"Usually when people say 'barking up the wrong tree'..." I said, and trailed off. I was really just smearing the shit around at this point. I took a miserable sip of my lemonade.

"I only meant," said Edward, "that you keep talking about superheroes like they're real."

"Bruce Wayne could be real," I pointed out.

"Bruce Wayne was a murderer," he said.

"Of murderers," I said cheekily.

"That doesn't make it right, Bella," he said, and there was no lightness left in his voice. He sounded deadly serious. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about...

"Um," I said nervously. "What are you saying, Edward?"

"Nothing," he said, looking back down at my lemonade cap, which had somehow crumpled in his hands. Cheap plastic. "I just...I wish you would do what's good for you, because I can't anymore." He slumped backward.

"I don't understand," I said slowly. "Are you actually saying you're...you're _dangerous?_"

Edward looked up at me through his lashes and nodded slowly.

"But.." I trailed off stupidly. How could he possibly be a danger to anyone? He was so...so _young_.

Except...

Well, there _had_ been times when he'd seemed more than capable of doing harm. _To me?_ I thought. I had no answer to that. There had been times when he'd seemed exactly his age, like a perfectly normal, goofy seventeen-year-old. And there had been times when he'd seemed so...so _dark_.

"I just don't get it," I said uncertainly, trying not to remember the tension in his body that whole month we weren't speaking. I'd thought then that he must be stronger than he looked.

"That's not true," he said morosely. "You always get it. You get everything. Way more than you should."

"No way," I said. "I never know what people are talking about. Humans confuse me."

"They confuse me too," he said, a shy smile creeping across his face. What could _he_ possibly have to be shy about? "Hey, Bella?" he asked. God, I just loved the way my name sounded on his lips.

"Yeah?" I said, too eagerly.

"Would you like to get out of here?"

My brow furrowed in confusion. Was he asking me to leave?

"With me?" he clarified, laughing at the expression on my face.

"What about Bio lab?" I asked. "We don't want to have to make that up."

"I've done this one before," he said evasively.

"You have?" I asked. "How do you even know which one it is?"

"I talked to Mr. Banner," he said. "He told me I didn't have to repeat it."

"Oh," I said. "Well, I don't have permission to skip, so..."

"Yeah, okay," he said morosely. He actually sounded disappointed in my answer. I looked up and realized that the cafeteria was almost empty. Only one other person was left: Alice Cullen, standing alone by the door, her eyebrows raised and a speculative look on her face. What was that about? Were the Cullens a cult of some kind? Was that what all the warnings were for?

Then the significance of an empty cafeteria hit me. Oh, shit, I was about to be so late!

"Gotta go!" I said, stumbling out of my seat. Edward caught me before I hit the floor. I straightened up with as much dignity as I could muster and tried to walk away sedately. His laughter was still ringing in my ears when I reached the lab.

* * *

It was 1947, and Rosalie had an idea.

"I think we should try interacting with humans more," she said, absently twisting her silken hair around one finger the way she always did when she wanted something very much. Edward had heard her thinking about this for a long time, but of course he had said nothing; it was her business to bring it up, and he didn't like to parade the fact that no one in his family could keep a secret from him.

Besides, he had hoped she would change her mind.

"How would you propose we go about that?" asked Esme cautiously. _This is a good sign_, she thought. _But is Emmett ready?_

"Well," said Rosalie, "Carlisle already lives as a human most of the time, working at the hospital. What if we tried something like that? Oh, not at the hospital, of course; I don't think for a moment we'd be strong enough. But we could at least go to school, couldn't we? It would give us something to do all day. And besides, I...I miss humans." She looked down, and when she spoke again, it was to her hands. "Humans change. They have limitations that define them, they make mistakes and they learn from them, or they don't learn from them, and they have so much innocence that they don't even _know_ how much they have. They don't understand how much danger they are in, from all sides, how many terrible things can happen to them..." She trailed off. _Maybe if I spend time with them, I can be like that again,_ she thought.

"This is an interesting idea," said Carlisle thoughtfully. "But have you thought about how hard it would be? I have had centuries to build up my self-control; you have had only years."

"Carlisle, I know I could do it!" said Rosalie. "I'm sure of it! Em and I have been going for walks downtown at lunchtime on weekdays, when everyone's about, and we're all right, really we are!"

"Emmett?" said Esme, turning to her youngest son. "How do you feel about this?" Edward could hear that Emmett's struggle was harder than Rosalie's; he had a naturally lower resistance than her. But he could also hear that Emmett would do much harder things than this to please his wife.

"I think I could do it," he said, but everyone could hear the uncertainty in his voice. _I don't know if I can do it_, he thought anxiously. _What if I hurt someone? I'm not good at this yet. I've slipped up twice already this year_.

"This is not an endeavor to be undertaken lightly," reminded Carlisle. "One small mistake could turn into a massacre. You know that."

"I know," said Rosalie. Oh, how she wanted this!

"Edward?" said Esme. _Be careful, my dear. Don't rush this decision._

_Please, Edward_, thought Rosalie. _Please, please help me convince them._

"I..." he said uncertainly. "I don't know if it's time, yet. So much could go wrong." Rosalie's limpid eyes went wide with disappointment. "We can do it some day," he hurried to say. "But we're all so young, still..."

"Rosie," said Emmett, taking her hand. "What if we just...waited a few years?" Rosalie's beautiful face fell, and Edward felt his heart constrict with pity. Rosalie suffered from what Edward's mother—his _first_ mother, Elizabeth Masen—would have called melancholia. These days they called it depression, but it amounted to the same thing. She was a vibrant, impetuous girl, and she felt sadness as passionately as she felt joy. But she really did have exceptional self-control. She'd never drunk a human's blood, not even when it would have been easy to justify. No one in this room but Carlisle could say the same. Perhaps it would be best if she could spend a few hours a day among humans. Perhaps it would help anchor her.

"What if we tried something...less drastic?" offered Edward. "Rose, you and I could go to night school. Maybe, once he feels up to it, Emmett could come, too. There wouldn't be as many people there, and the temptation wouldn't be as severe. We could just take a few classes here and there, get used to the idea."

_Oh, Edward_, thought Rosalie. _Really?_

"Really," said Edward. Then he had to brace himself against the sprawling hug she flung at him. After a few minutes more of counsel, she and Emmett escaped to the house Esme had built for them a few miles distant.

"Are you sure of this?" asked Carlisle gravely. "I know you want to make your sister happy, and that is a very admirable aim, but you ought not allow yourself to be carried away."

"I can do it," said Edward with more bravado than he felt. "Rosalie and I'll look out for each other. It'll be alright. Who knows, maybe after a semester she won't even want to do it anymore."

* * *

**Thanks for reading and reviewing. Also, merry Christmas! (I don't celebrate Christmas in the usual sense, myself, but I am all for a week off work to sit on my ass drinking bloody marys, playing mariokart, and writing fanfiction about everyone's favorite judgy yellow-eyed WASP)**


	9. Mysterious Strangers

It didn't take me long to regret my decision not to skip class with Edward: the lab for today was blood-typing. As soon as Mr. Banner started to take out indicator cards and lancets, the lemonade turned in my stomach. Uh oh.

About two seconds after he pricked Mike's finger and smeared the blood on the card, I felt the room go wobbly. My notebooks rushed up to meet my face, and I was only brought to with the sharp pain of smacking my left cheekbone on the table. Ouch. That would bruise for sure.

"Bella?" asked Mr. Banner, startled.

"Sorry," I said woozily. "I, um...blood makes me..." I trailed off. If I kept talking, I was going to be sick. Thank _god_ Edward wasn't here to see this ridiculous display.

"Oh...well, Mike, you'd better walk her to the nurse's office. Your indicator card should be ready by the time you get back. Feel better, Bella." He was still looking at me with concern as Mike good-naturedly put his arm around my shoulders and led from the room.

The nurse's office was in another building, so we had to go outside. It was only misting, not outright raining, and the cool moisture in the air actually helped to clear my head.

"This is fine, Mike," I said. "You don't have to take me the whole way. I'm already embarrassed enough. I don't need to show up at the nurse's office with an escort."

"Hey, no embarrassment between friends, right?" he said brightly. "Oh, hey, Bella, you're still coming to the beach this weekend, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "I used to play there as a kid. I like La Push."

"Awesome," he said. "Well, see you then." Then he turned and walked back to class. I had to admit, Mike was growing on me. It was nice of him not to goad me about my stupid fainting spell.

"Bella?" called a familiar voice. My ears perked up.

"Hi, Edward!" I said, too brightly. He was standing by the open door of his Beemer, but shut it and walked toward me at once.

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, eyeing my left cheek with concern etched in his face. He took my wrist in one hand and felt for the pulse; I shivered in response to his freezing-cold touch.

"Yeah," I said, disproportionately thrilled that Edward was playing doctor with me. "They're blood-typing in Bio lab..."

"I know," he said, laughing. "Didn't I say you should ditch with me? Come on, let's go." He began pulling me back toward his car.

"Hang on," I protested, sidling away. "I was supposed to go to the nurse."

"Really?" he asked, perplexed. "Why?"

"Um, I sort of fainted a little bit," I admitted. "I can't handle the smell of blood."

"Humans can't smell blood," he contradicted. It was odd the way he said the word _humans_, like it was a group that didn't include him.

"Well, then I guess I'm not human," I said, "because I can smell it fine. It's sort of rusty and sweet...and a little briny. It makes me woozy."

The other thing that made me woozy was Edward, and he was in full force at the moment. "Well, come along then," he said, offering me his arm like a gentleman and daring me with his dark-lashed eyes to refuse. "Let's get you to the nurse, _then_ ditch."

"Okay," I agreed, my heart fluttering. Edward did some mojo with the nurse and then with Ms. Cope, the red-haired secretary who, as far as I could tell, ran the whole school. As a result, five minutes later we were walking out to the parking lot, free as birds; I'd been excused for the whole rest of the day.

"So, what were you doing with your free period?" I asked him.

"Listening to a CD in my car," he said. That was such a normal, non-mysterious answer that I almost doubted my own ears. "Hey, I told Ms. Cope I'd see you home. Want to go for a ride?"

I looked longingly from his car to the Thing. "I should drive my truck home," I said regretfully.

"No worries," said Edward. "Alice can drive it home for you." It didn't even occur to me that this was a weird solution to the problem; I was just too eager for a chance to talk more with Edward. He led me to his Beemer and even opened the door for me. It was an adorable car. Even mechanically-challenged little me could tell it had nice lines, despite its obvious age. And I liked its unusual spiced-pumpkin color. I slid into the front seat and buckled myself in dutifully. Edward climbed into the driver's seat and cranked the engine. Then he putzed about with the control panel, turning the heater up and the music down.

"Wait a sec," I said, straining to hear the music leaking through the speakers. "Is this Mahler?"

"Yeah..." he said, sounding surprised. "Mahler 5. Do you know this piece?"

I shook my head. "Not really," I admitted. "My mom went through a classical music phase, but it didn't last long. I just remember this part. I think it was on a compilation CD."

"This is a great piece of music," said Edward happily. "The Adagietto's particularly good. It was a love song for the girl he liked. He wrote this poem..." And then, without skipping a beat, he recited, "_Wie ich dich liebe, Du meine Sonne, ich kann mit Worten Dir's nicht sagen. Nur meine Sehnsucht kann ich Dir klagen und meine Liebe._" I didn't know any German, but even I could tell his accent was perfect. I wondered how a girl was supposed to resist a beautiful boy who recited love-poems in German while listening to Mahler in his BMW. I doubted it could even be done.

"What...what does that mean?" I asked.

"How much I love you," he said quietly, looking steadily at the road and away from my eyes, "you my sun, I cannot tell you that with words. I can only lament to you my longing and love."

"You know German," I said breathlessly, my heart pounding and already halfway his.

"Hardly," he said, looking away. "I just really like Mahler. You know, he would have fallen by the wayside and been pretty much lost to history, only Leonard Bernstein pushed for this huge revival of his works in the Sixties. Back then, the Vienna Phil wouldn't have anything to do with Jewish people, but Bernstein got so popular that they finally wanted him to come conduct for them. I mean, just think about it, this gay American Jew, conducting the Vienna Philharmonic, all these old white men who were probably on the diabolical side of the Third Reich. And he insisted that they do Mahler, who at that point was just this disgraceful Bohemian Jew, and they kept playing poorly on purpose, until one day he threw his hands up and said, 'I don't get it, this is _your music_.' After that, Mahler really did become a big part of Vienna's repertoire. It was incredible, you should have seen it."

"Except for the part where we weren't alive back then," I pointed out. Edward shrugged, smiled halfheartedly and continued to avoid eye contact.

We drove on in silence for a while. He had a smooth ride, and a good sound-system. I didn't even realize how fast he was going until I happened to catch a glimpse of the speedometer; it showed a speed of 70mph on a road that only allowed half that. I began gnawing nervously on my lip; what a miracle of awfulness it would be if Charlie caught us speeding!

"What's your mother like?" Edward asked suddenly, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

"Um," I said, hesitating. My mom was a flake, honestly, but I didn't want to say that because I loved her. "Well, she's a lot like me in some ways, but she's more...flighty, I guess. I usually had to keep things under control at home. She's really beautiful, too. I always hoped I'd look like her when I grew up, but I look more like my dad. I get almost everything from him: his looks, his personality..."

"Yeah, you really do," said Edward thoughtfully. "How old are you, Bella?"

"Seventeen," I said. He looked at me in disbelief. "What?" I said defensively.

"You really, _really_ don't seem seventeen," he said. He had that look again, like he was frustrated for no reason I could imagine.

"Well, I am," I said. "So are you."

"How do you know that" he asked, amused.

"I just hear things," I said. "Besides, you're a junior, like me. That does narrow the field. You seem older than you look, though." For some reason this comment displeased him.

"So do you," he muttered. "You don't act your age. Or my age, for that matter."

"Huh?" I said, confused. We were the same age. What was he talking about?

"Never mind," he said. Then, changing the subject, "So, did you mind when your mother got remarried?" He looked at me quickly and added, "I mean, did you _really_ mind? Deep down?"

I shrugged. "She can do what she wants," I said. "I love her, but I don't really understand her." I looked up and realized we had pulled up in from of my house. Then I realized that I had thought of it as _my_ house and not just _Charlie's_ house. What was Forks doing to me? To distract myself from this uncomfortable thought, I asked Edward a question that had been bugging me ever since my first day of school: "So, what about your family? You're adopted, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I mean, sort of. Well, Esme and Carlisle are my mom and dad, anyway. It's sort of complicated."

"I can keep up," I said teasingly, echoing his own words. "I tie my own shoelaces and everything."

He laughed. "Well," he said, "my parents died a while ago. I don't even remember them, not really. And Carlisle and Esme took me in. It was tricky, because they were so young at the time, but all the paperwork went through eventually. I loved Esme right away. Carlisle took a while longer, but I got there eventually. I couldn't ask for better parents." It struck me, as it had with Alice before, that Edward didn't seem constrained by social standards of coolness. He talked about loving his mom and dad in a way that no other seventeen-year-old boy I'd ever met would do. He didn't seem embarrassed at all. I couldn't help but admire him for it.

"What about Alice and Emmett?" I asked. "They're also adopted?"

"We all are," said Edward. "Alice and I took Carlisle's name because we were so young when they took us in. I was only seven, and they adopted Alice a year later. And Emmett joined us a few years ago; he didn't have to take their name, but he wanted to."

"And Rosalie and Jasper...?" I prompted.

"They're distant cousins of Carlisle's," said Edward. "Their mom and dad died, but they were already teenagers by then, so Carlisle agreed to take them in so they wouldn't have to be split up. Most foster parents wouldn't take a pair of teenagers like that."

"He looks so young," I mused. "I can't believe he was old enough to adopt, ten years ago."

"Well, only barely," said Edward. "Like I said, he had to fight the system. But it was important to him. And to Esme." I could hear in the way he said her name that he adored her. I wondered what she was like.

"Speaking of which," he said regretfully, "I should probably get going or they'll start to wonder if I got eaten by something. But I'll see you on Monday?"

"Of course," I said, smiling. "Hey, Mike and Jess are having a thing on the rez this weekend. Do you...want to come with us?"

"I don't think I'm invited."

"This is me inviting you." I smiled winningly.

"I'd better not," he said. "I'm going camping with my family. But have fun. And please, Bella, try not to kill yourself slipping on seaweed, okay?"

"I would never," I said with dignity as I extracted myself from the car. The illusion was perfect, right up until I stumbled over my front steps and almost went sprawling on the porch. I looked back at Edward and saw that he was still parked in the street, laughing at my fall.

* * *

In 1950, Esme was putting the finishing touches on the Cullens' newest house in Ithaca. It was a sprawling, one-story rubblestone building with courtyards sprinkled liberally throughout. Edward helped her weed the overgrown garden in the front of the house.

"I thought roses at first," Esme was saying, "but perhaps roses are too much..."

_...Impossible to sneak up on this one_, came a distant echo. Edward's head jerked up. "What did you say?" he asked Esme. She looked at him quizzically.

"I was talking about the garden..." she said.

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about the garden, too," she said with a smile. "You know that. Edward, what are you—"

_Well, perfect, now our big entrance is ruined,_ came the strange voice again. It was definitely a female voice, neither Esme's nor Rosalie's, and it had that foggy, underdeveloped quality of words not spoken aloud.

"Who's there?" Edward called, standing and going instinctively into a defensive stance between Esme and...wherever that voice was coming from.

"Well, darlin', do you want to talk first or should I?" muttered an unfamiliar, twanging male voice. This time, Esme heard it too. She gasped and dropped slightly into the same defensive stance.

"Hi!" chirped the voice from cover of the forest around their house. "Sorry to startle you, but we were looking for directions to the Cullens' house?" Edward and Esme looked at each other in shock. No one knew they had moved into the neighborhood; he and Rosalie hadn't signed up for any new night-classes here. Esme hadn't even gone knocking on doors yet with baskets of fresh-baked muffins for the neighbors.

"Rosalie, Emmett!" called Esme. Edward noted how well she kept her anxiety under control. Carlisle wasn't here; the sun had come out unexpectedly while he was at the hospital, and so he had elected to stay until sundown so as not to raise any eyebrows. Edward glanced down at his own glowing skin. Well, whoever these people were, they were about to see four vampires in full shine.

"What is it?" asked Rosalie, running up to Esme, her husband just behind.

"There's someone out there," said Esme. "Talking to us."

"Mom?" asked Emmett. "Should we scram?"

"Too late," said Edward, because suddenly two people were striding through the tree break toward the Cullens. Two people with glittering skin. A tiny, black-haired female with amber-colored eyes, a tall male with reddish-orange ones.

Emmett and Rosalie adopted Edward and Esme's fighting stance. The tiny vampire laughed, a tinkling, charming sound.

"Oh, don't worry about us," she said happily. "We've just come to live with you, that's all!"

* * *

**You may have noticed that I changed the piece that Edward and Bella listen to in the car. For once, the change wasn't prompted by some personal disgust at Edward or Bella or Smeyer. It's a small thing, and it's subjective, but it's important to me, and I'll explain why.**

**I actually love that Smeyer chose to have Edward and Bella bond over classical music. It's a nice reprieve from that tired old chestnut, "We Mustn't Be Together! But O How Shall I Stay Away!" It's specific information in a story where Edward's only attributes are his perfect looks and Bella's are her averageness and her inability to notice when she's crying. I just don't think Smeyer went far enough with it, and the part of me that loves classical music is a little let down by her choice of _Clair de lune. _(No, it's not because I don't like the piece.)  
**

**I don't really get the sense that Smeyer _listens_ to classical music, like, for_ fun_. That's fine, no one says she has to, but if she's going to make such a point of saying that Edward is a classical music junkie, then she really should have done a little more research. _Clair de lune_ is the most popular and pretty movement of _Suite Bergamasque_, which is one of the most popular and pretty pieces by Claude Debussy, who is one of the most popular composers in the entire history of Western music. Edward ****is an intense, introspective eternal teenager with a tendency toward dark thoughts and weighty moral dilemmas, who has spent the last _hundred years_ listening to, collecting and performing classical music. **To be crass, cherry-picking _Clair de lune_ just feels too easy. We don't need any more clues telling us that Edward is _pretty_. We want to know what's going on underneath all that.

**I'm not saying that Mahler's Fifth is the definitively correct piece for this situation, but it made more sense for my version of the story. I'm not saying _Clair de lune_ isn't heart-breakingly beautiful, or that it _can't_ work, or that Edward wouldn't listen to it. This change is wholly based on my own personal feelings about music, and I want to be careful not to say something hard-lined and douchey. But as an author, Smeyer had lots of opportunities to give us subtle hints about the mysterious brooding boy, and this is one place where I think she had a great idea but executed it carelessly.**

**Also, I am literally the only person I have ever known to care about this, so I really don't expect anyone else to give a crap or agree with me. I just wanted to explain how I feel about it and why I made the change. **


	10. Blasts From the Pasts

The weekend was overcast but dry. I woke excited to revisit the scene of so many happy childhood memories. The only downside was that Edward wouldn't be there. But it would be pleasant to spend time with Jessica and Angela.

I met up with my fiends at Newton's Olympic Outfitters, which was Mike's family's sporting-goods store. There were a bunch of people I didn't know well, but I didn't have a chance to get to know them because as soon as I pulled up in my Thing, Jessica grabbed my hand and dragged me over to Angela.

"Okay," she said. "Spill."

"What?" I asked stupidly.

"Um, you like, totally vanished after lunch yesterday. And you were sitting with Edward Cullen. _Edward Cullen_."

"He never sits away from his family at lunch," offered Angela. "What did he want?" Both girls' eyes were shining, excited for something juicy. Was it weird that I didn't want to share too much? My conversation with Edward still felt too private.

"Um, he wanted to ditch Bio with me," I said at last. Angela nodded knowingly.

"That's why you left class. Told you so," she added in a false whisper, turning to Jessica. I blushed. Now they thought I was some kind of delinquent!

"No, I really do get sick at the smell of blood," I said defensively. "That part was totally real! I just...didn't mind missing Gym, too." This was all I could give them without feeling like a total pushover.

"Nnngh, you are _killing_ us, Bella Swan," groaned Jessica, linking her arm through mine and leading me over to Mike's car. "Come on, hop in. You'd better give me something good on the way over. I know you're holding out."

By the time we got to the rez, I hadn't given Jessica very much, but she wasn't too fussed about it: a coincidence of logistics left us both in the front seat with Mike, and she didn't seem to mind being squished up next to him the whole way there. I had to admit, I was relieved to have the pressure off of me.

The beach was just as I remembered: a long, rocky crescent with a thin lip of sand abutting the water. Seen from afar, it was the same uniform gray of the rest of Forks. Close to, it was a kaleidoscope of every beautiful color, from the warm tan of sandstone to the greenish-gray of lichen. Mike, Tyler and Ben got to work building a bonfire out of driftwood in a smoke-blackened firepit.

"You ever seen a driftwood fire?" Tyler asked me once it was all assembled. I shook my head. "Here," he said, handing me a lighter. "You'll like this." He showed me where to ignite, and in moments a brilliant blue-green flame had leapt into life.

"That's so beautiful," I breathed, mesmerized by the chromatic symphony. How had I missed this in all my summers at Forks?

"It sure is," said Tyler appreciatively. When I looked up, I saw he wasn't looking at the fire at all. I blushed and looked away.

After a little while, a group broke off to go for a hike. I remembered what Edward had said about not hurting myself on this outing and decided to join them tramping through the deep dark woods. He wasn't the boss of me. Besides, Tyler was staying at the beach.

By the time we got hungry enough to return, our group had multiplied. I could tell from the glowing golden skin tones and dark hair that the new additions were native teens who had come to hang out. I scanned the group for familiar faces. Maybe I'd see Leah Clearwater, the older girl I'd tagged after as a kid.

Leah wasn't there, but her cousin was: a boy named Jacob with an open, pleasant face and shiny black hair tied at the back of his neck. I hadn't played with him much, but I at least recognized him. If I remembered correctly, he was only a year or two behind me.

"Hi, Jacob," I said cheerfully around a mouthful of smoky hotdog. "Long time no see."

"Hi, Isabella," he said with a wink. I cringed.

"Ew," I said. "No one calls me that."

"No one calls me Jacob, either," he said. "It's Jake."

"Sorry, Jake," I said, holding out my hotdog-free hand. "Truce?"

"Truce," he said. His coppery skin looked beautiful and glowing, even in this dull light. It was weird to see him so grown up. What was even weirder was that, even though we hadn't seen each other in about five years, I somehow felt totally at ease with him.

"I think my dad bought a truck off your dad," I said, eager to make conversation with this blast from my past.

"Sure did," he said. "How do you like her?"

"She's great," I said.

"She is," he agreed, "Slow, maybe. But great."

"Well, I'm slow too," I said. "I don't mind. Did you have anything to do with the Thing?"

"The _Thing?_" he asked, his black eyes crinkling in laughter. "If you mean the _Chevy_, then yes, I did. I like working on old cars. I was really glad when Charlie took that old barge off our hands. My dad wouldn't let me work on anything new until the Chevy was out of the garage. I was getting sick of her."

"Hey, now," I said. "Careful. I love my Thing." Jake's eyes widened and I blushed, suddenly aware of how I'd probably sounded. "So, cars, huh?" I asked, hoping to distract him.

"Yup," he said eagerly. "I'm onto a 1986 Volkswagon Rabbit now, but it's hard to find the parts. But if you do, they'll keep you on the road forever."

"That sounds good," I said, already lost.

"Hey, Bella!" called Lauren, the snide pretty girl who sat at my table at lunch. "Don't let _Edward_ catch you talking to another man!"

I blinked at her in confusion. Edward wasn't _mine_ or anything. And besides, Jacob Black didn't count as a man. Not yet, certainly. And _besides_ besides, why was she so interested all of a sudden? Did she not like me or something? Did she have a thing for Edward?

What a silly question. Who could see him and not have at least a little bit of a thing for him?

"The Cullens are camping this weekend," I said, trying to sound unruffled. Lauren rolled her eyes. Clearly, I was missing some subtext.

"The Cullens?" repeated a deep-voiced older Quileute boy.

"Yeah," I said eagerly. "Do you know them?"

The older boy shrugged. "They don't come here," he said dismissively.

There was something about his tone that piqued my interest. Like, it wasn't that the Cullens _didn't _come here, it was that they _couldn't_. Yet another mystery to add to the pile. I was beginning to think I would never understand Edward-the-enigma.

"You know the Cullens?" asked Jake. I nodded, linked my arm through Jake's and led him away from the others.

"What can you tell me about them?" I asked.

* * *

"I'm Alice," said the tiny one, bobbing into a quick, old-fashioned curtsy, "and this is Jasper. I love this house, Esme. You designed it all yourself?" Esme nodded dumbly. "Oh, I can tell we're going to get along swimmingly!" Then, before Esme could react, Alice gave her an exuberant hug. Esme patted her awkwardly on the top of the head instead of returning the embrace, but Edward could already hear Esme's thoughts turning to curiosity and—of course—tentative affection.

As a matter of fact, Emmett's thoughts were also viewing Alice with amused curiosity. Rosalie's were much more guarded, but Edward could honestly say that he didn't believe this little girl was a threat to his family. And Edward was usually the first and last line of defense for the Cullens.

But he could hear Alice's thoughts, and they were overflowing with joy and relief.

_Finally!_ she was rejoicing internally. _Oh, I can't wait to find out all about everyone! Esme seems lovely!_ She turned to Edward. "Do you have anything you want to say to me?" she asked. Edward blinked at her. She was awfully...commanding.

"...No?" he said.

"Oh, I think you do," she said, and then a strange thing happened.

Edward knew from experience that most people don't think in structured words and sentences. That was what made it relatively easy for him to drown out most mental voices. Most of his family's thoughts weren't in a format he could easily decode; it was only the occasional thought that worked its way into straightforward syntax. Even so, he had picked up a few things in the last thirty years. He could tell a person's mental voice apart from their vocal one. He could tell when they were remembering an event that had truly happened, and he could tell when they were merely fantasizing. Sometimes, a person thought in disconnected words; sometimes, in disconnected pictures; most often, in ways that couldn't be classified or decoded, even by him.

But what happened with Alice was completely new: Suspended in her mind was a memory. He could tell it was a memory by the psychological feeling of distance it exuded. But it couldn't be a memory, because it was a memory of this very glade, and in the memory, Edward himself was opening his mouth to speak.

"Is that...the future?" Edward asked, in Alice's mind and in his own real voice. He winced at the peculiar, echoing sensation it gave him.

"Sure is," she said happily. "I knew I would find you eventually."

"You can see the future?" Edward asked again, still not believing the evidence of his own mental eyes. Somehow, even being a mind-reader hadn't prepared him for the possibility that there were real, actual _psychics_ out there. Tiny, excitable ones. This Alice character hardly fit the traditional view of the psychic, with the vulture-like croaking voice and heavy, perfumed robes. Alice was more like a sparrow than a vulture; she practically hopped from Cullen to Cullen, peering up into their eyes and smiling like a maniac.

"Right on the first try!" Alice confirmed. She spun around for sheer joy, the wide skirt of her sun-dress whirling out around her.

Edward could register only one thing, an undercurrent to all of her thoughts that colored them with an aching desperation:

She had been alone for a long, long time. She never wanted to be alone again.

* * *

"So, why don't the Cullens come onto the rez?" I asked Jacob.

"They aren't allowed," he said. "Too white."

"I'm too white," I said with an exaggerated pout. "Should I leave?"

"Nah," said Jacob, looking at me with what almost seemed like fondness. "You're allowed. But only because you're related."

"I am?" I asked, momentarily surprised out of my quest for information.

"Sure," he said. "Didn't you know that? The Swan half of your family came from La Push a few generations back. You're part native."

Why would he know something like that? "Why would you know something like that?" I asked.

"The elders love telling us boring old stories," he said, rolling his eyes.

"Like what?"

"I guess I can tell you," he said, "since you're like, my seventeenth cousin nine times removed. The elders shouldn't care about that. It's very spooky though; try not to wet yourself in terror."

"I have my Depends on," I said reassuringly. He laughed.

"Well, they tell us about the origins of the tribe," he began. "Quileutes are descended from wolves, did you know that? It's why we're so strong and handsome and manly." I had to laugh at that: Jacob was a very good-looking boy, and he was almost as tall as Edward, but he was also thin as a string-bean, and his face was too sweet to be macho. I bit back my laugh before he could become offended, however. Eyes on the prize.

"Then," he continued, "there are all the stories about the Cold Ones." An involuntary shiver ran down my spine at this. Who did I know who was always cold?

"My great-grandfather was one of the wolves who made the treaty to keep the Cold Ones off our land," said Jacob.

"You're great-grandpa was a wolf?" I asked. "How'd your great-grandma feel about that?"

"I bet she loved it," he answered saucily. "Anyway, he wasn't a wolf all the time. Only sometimes. Like a werewolf. And the Cold Ones were our enemies, and he was one of the only ones strong enough to drive them away. Usually, he and his brother-wolves killed any Cold Ones who came near us, but these ones stalled enough to show my great-grandfather that they weren't a threat—they didn't want to hurt humans the way Cold Ones usually do. So he made a truce with them, that if they didn't eat the humans who lived around here and they stayed off our land, we wouldn't kill them or expose them to the pale-faces." He winked at me—no one was more of a pale-face than I was.

"I don't get it," I said. "What does all this—wolves and cannibals—have to do with the Cullens?"

"Vampires, not cannibals," said Jacob. And then, with a theatrical edge to his voice, he concluded, "The Cullens and the ones who made the treaty are...the _same people!_" He did ghostie-fingers. "And now that they've returned, they must honor the treaty by staying away from the rez. And we don't go to them, either. We don't even go to Forks Hospital anymore, not since Dr. Cullen started working there."

"Wow," I said, looking out at the waves. I couldn't conceal the emotion on my face. I knew Jacob didn't believe a word he was saying. Everything in his voice—the theatrics, the silliness—proved that. But I couldn't help but be intrigued. Edward himself had told me he was dangerous. And apparently it was true that they weren't allowed on the rez. But none of this could be real, could it? I mean, Carlisle was younger than my dad, for crying out loud! Edward was only seventeen!

_Is he?_ my brain asked me impudently. Edward didn't seem to belong in this generation, that was for sure. He listened to Mahler, for crying out loud. For _fun_!

_Well, so do you,_ my brain reminded me. Which was true enough, so far as it went. But I didn't also memorize the German poems Mahler had written for his girlfriend. I had read _Northanger Abbey_, but I was a teenage girl; that was normal enough for me. But for a teenage boy to have done so—and to admit it!—was...unusual, at least.

"Hey," said Jacob in concern. "Are you okay? You do know all this stuff is made up, right?"

"Of course it is," I said, forcing a laugh. "You tell a good story, though." I nudged him playfully in the ribs. He smiled happily at me, his concern erased.

"Maybe when I get my license..." he said, and trailed off.

"You can come see me in Forks," I finished for him. "And until then, maybe I can come see you. I'll come with Charlie next time he visits your dad."

"That would be awesome!" he bubbled. What an absolute sweetheart.

We returned and I helped my friends pack up our picnic, climbed into the back of Mike's car, and tried very hard not to believe everything Jacob Black had just told me.

* * *

By the time Carlisle returned to the house in the woods, Alice had already staked out her bedroom. It was Edward's bedroom, actually, but she took no notice of that, just waltzed right in and claimed it. Edward was too bemused to deny her.

"Cary," said Esme tentatively when he opened the front door. "We have some...some visitors."

"Really? Who?" he asked, hanging his hat and overcoat on the rack.

"Not visitors!" Alice sang, dancing into the front hallway. "Hello, Carlisle. I'm Alice, and this is my beau, Jasper. We've been teaching ourselves to survive on animal blood. We want to stay with you."

"But..." Carlisle sputtered, staring from Alice to Jasper. "How did you...?"

"Alice can see the future," Edward explained. "It's a remarkable gift, Carlisle. I've seen it myself, and I can tell you, it's the real McCoy."

"I saw all of you in a vision," Alice said. "Oh, it must have been ten years ago at least." _Ten years and six months and four days and twelve hours_. She'd felt every minute. "I didn't know who you were, but I was curious about your yellow eyes. So I focused my visions as much as I could. I'm sorry it took us this long to find you, but I had to wait until I found Jasper. He was in the visions, too, you see."

"Yes, I see," said Carlisle. _Edward, what on earth is she talking about?_

"Apparently her visions are in constant flux," said Edward. "They depend on certain groundworks being laid down. I think." That was all he had gleaned from Alice's communications, which were haphazard at best.

"I can see the weather perfectly," said Alice. "Because the weather systems are already in place, nothing can change them, or if they do change, the change will begin long before it is completed, and I'll see it. Humans and vampires, though, are much less predictable. They change their minds all the time. That was how I found you: I would pick out a vision that showed me meeting you, and then make an effort to follow it exactly. It's not a very precise way to track someone, but as you see—it worked!" _Even if it did take forever_, she thought ruefully.

"Forgive me, my dear," said Carlisle in his very best Doctor Voice, "but I don't understand. How did you see the first vision—the one that began it all?"

"I don't know," said Alice. "It was quite random. I was in Chicago about ten years ago. Up till then I'd mostly used my power to avoid other people like...like me." Edward realized with a pang of sympathy that Alice had spent most of her afterlife terrified of other vampires.

"I was planning to visit a cemetery there, where one of my uncles was buried, and as soon as I decided to go, I had the vision. I saw all of you, all dressed in black, standing around a particular grave. Only when I got there, I didn't see anyone. I waited and waited, but no one came. But in the vision you all had yellow eyes, and I had never met one of us who looked like that. But it was more than the eyes. You looked different, somehow. Kind. That was when I started looking for you." Edward did not have to work very hard to imagine what had happened: ten years ago, they had all lived briefly in his old family home, and he had debated the whole time whether to visit his mother's grave. But he'd never had the nerve.

"You said Jasper was in your visions?"

"Yes, a few years after the first one, he started appearing in my visions, too. We're mates now," she added with a surge of pride. Edward couldn't help smiling. Alice seemed to have almost no filters; she said and did exactly as she pleased. Yet she didn't appear selfish. More often than not, the thing that pleased her most was to make everybody around her smile. And it was very effective. Even Rosalie, despite her anxiety about meeting a stranger and allowing an unknown entity into their home, seemed half-charmed already.

"Jasper?" asked Carlisle, turning to the tall blond male who had so far said very little. Jasper bowed slightly.

"How d'you do?" he said politely. He sounded southern. Or western. Or both.

"Er...how do you feel about all of this?" asked Carlisle helplessly. His thoughts were in a tangle; Edward could hear that he felt he _ought_ to be in control, but that he didn't know enough about what was going on to be sure of his next move.

"Oh, I just go where Alice tells me," said Jasper with a small smile. This was his longest speech yet, and a strange thing accompanied it: the feeling in the room seemed to lighten by several degrees. Edward felt a contented little smile lifting one corner of his own mouth, and saw Emmett and Rosalie grinning blissfully at each other.

"Oh, my," said Carlisle faintly. "I suppose that's your gift, is it?"

"Yessir," said Jasper. "I try not to use it. I know it ain't fair. But sometimes it just comes out." This time, the change was even more pronounced: Edward felt himself becoming optimistic and secure. Everyone's anxiety about Alice began to fade, and with the lessening of anxiety, they could all reflect on the pleasure that Alice had already given them that day.

"Jasper, can you please explain what is happening?" asked Carlisle. Edward could hear him struggling against the tide of good-feeling that threatened to sweep all sense out of the proceedings.

"Sorry," said Jasper, looking away from Alice with a jerk. _Aw, shoot_, he thought. _A fine first impression._ "I have some measure of control over the emotions of those around me," he said. "Ordinarily I'm much more adept at containing it, but..." Although he stopped talking, his thoughts went on: _It happens all the time when she's around._

Of course. He and Alice had only met two years ago; their love was still so new that neither Jasper nor Alice had gotten used to it, yet. Whatever Jasper was feeling seemed to shoot out of him and land on whoever was standing nearby. And these were some powerful feelings indeed.

"Cary?" said Esme, touching her husband's arm. "Couldn't they stay for a few nights at least, just to talk?"

_Oh, I hope they can,_ thought Rosalie. _It's about time we had another girl about the place._

_I wonder if Alice could tell if it would be safe for me to go to class,_ mused Emmett, who disliked being left out of Edward and Rosalie's academic club.

_She seems so sweet,_ thought Esme. _A perfect darling. And such a help around the house!_ Alice had spent much of the afternoon wallpapering the library with Esme.

_I hope they let us stay,_ thought Jasper. _I don't think I can keep this up without more help._ With a shock, Edward realized that Jasper had only begun to give up human blood when he'd met Alice, and that there had been too many slip-ups to count. He had to shake off a feeling of revulsion, and remind himself that he was in no position to judge.

_What do you think, Edward? _thought Carlisle.

Edward listened for Alice's mental voice. Unlike the others, she wasn't speculating about the situation at hand, worrying about whether she'd be accepted, or stewing over past mistakes.

No, she wasn't thinking about that at all. She was planning out what she would wear on her first day of school with Jasper, Rosalie, Emmett, and Edward.

_I think I'll start as a sophomore,_ she thought. _What about you, Edward?_

A bubble of laughter began to rise through Edward's chest, squeezing past his lungs and his heart and pushing away all sorts of ugly thoughts that had festered for far too long.

"Edward?" prompted Carlisle, still waiting for a response.

Edward said nothing. He was laughing too hard to answer.

* * *

**Obviously I'm tweaking Alice's power for consistency and sense-making, but I have to table that discussion because we have bigger, sexier fish to fry here. Why is Smeyer so committed to the idea that projecting an air of sexual desirability is a huge moral failing? See: everything she writes about every blonde character, ever, but especially Rosalie, Lauren and the three promiscuous Denali sisters, whom she informs us are literally Succubi. (By the way, what is up with Smeyer and blondes? Was a blonde mean to her once? Did a blonde once tell her that lip gloss makes her look washed-out, or that teal Trapper Keepers are like, _so_ last season? I swear to god, sometimes I can't tell if I'm reading Twilight or watching a John Hughes movie.)**

**All this apparently means that flirting, which is the most socially acceptable method of communicating sexual interest, is only for sluts, tramps and harlots. I guess she thinks that the only good reason to flirt is if you are trying to extract information from an underage boy. **

**I just don't get it: why does Bella have to try so hard to flirt, and why is she so unnatural about it? Has she never done it before? I find that hard to believe; the girl is seventeen, after all, and flirting comes in all shapes and sizes, not just the eyelash-batting variety. Why does she think that flirting is the only way to get information out of Jacob? He's a really kind, open, friendly guy; couldn't she have just _asked?_ Did she have to be so awkwardly manipulative about it? And why does it come off so predatory when Bella does it? Can't she flirt with him just because he's cute and they're young and it's fun? Does she have to have all these ulterior motives? **

**I guess Smeyer thought that if Bella was good at flirting, or enjoyed it at all for its own sake, that would mean she's some unclean, fallen woman or something. I bet that woman was real fun to be around as a teenager. **


	11. Mind Mining

As soon as I got home, I powered up my clunky old laptop and began to self-consciously research all that Jake had told me. I typed in everything I could think of, starting with _Vampires_. This was way too broad a search, and almost none of what came up was relevant. There was plenty of lore about vampires: supposedly, they had no shadows or reflections, and their image could not be captured on film. They survived on human blood, but were by most accounts immortal. They could be killed with a stake through the heart, garlic or holy water, and they could not enter an abode without an invitation. Some stories described horrible, rotting corpses, fire-eyed demons from hell, or skeletal creatures who never blinked. Other stories described unearthly beautiful creatures, like sirens or angels, who used their beauty to entrap their victims. Most websites reported that vampires had inhuman speed and strength, regenerative powers and occasionally even magic. It said that some famous vampires were telepathic.

How ridiculous. This couldn't all be true. So far I had _only_ seen the Cullens in the daytime. And Edward's eyes did change color, it was true, but he hardly looked like a fire-eyed demon from hell. If anything, I was more inclined to believe the theory that vampires were unnaturally beautiful. The Cullens certainly had that going for them.

I tried narrowing my search, adding in keywords like _Quileute, Cold Ones, _and _werewolves_. This didn't give me much more information, but I did notice that there were one or two obscure books on Quileute tribal history that might provide more answers. Feeling silly, I wrote down the titles and authors of the books, along with the address of a shop in Port Angeles that sold them, and stowed the paper in my bag.

I looked up and realized it was already past one in the morning. I hadn't even noticed the passage of time, but now my long day caught up to me. I flopped onto my bed and fell asleep still clothed.

* * *

Edward sat at a desk beside Jasper, paying close attention to his brother's thoughts. Jasper was careful not to breathe too much during school hours—although his ensuing quiet had the side-effect of giving him a reputation for dullness. Edward, who shared several of his classes with Jasper as a sort of bodyguard, did not share this opinion. Jasper's nose and mouth may have been sealed shut, but he delighted in thinking cheeky thoughts at his adopted brother.

_I wonder if Sister Maria-Teresa would ease up if I made her feel extra-penitent. She seems the sort to get a real thrill out of guilt. I think I'll try._ Jasper was clearly baiting Edward. And it was working.

"Do you mind?" Edward hissed.

"Mr. Cullen," barked Sister Maria-Teresa, a walnut-faced nun. "If you have something to say, you will say it aloud, to me, and to no one else. I don't know how they did it at your _old_ school, but here at St. Boniface, we obey the dicta of common courtesy."

"Yes, Sister," said Edward.

_Busted,_ thought Jasper gleefully.

"Oh, go fly a kite," whispered Edward, too low for a human's ears to hear.

"Mr. _Cullen_," snapped Sister Maria-Teresa. Edward's head whipped up. How on earth had she heard that? Oh lord a'mighty, he had always been afraid of nuns. No reason to stop now.

"Forgive me, Sister," he said contritely.

"God forgives," said Sister Maria-Teresa, advancing on her recalcitrant student with a ruler in her hand. "I discipline. Now, hands out, palms up. Both of them."

_Oooh, this is going to hurt,_ thought Jasper with a considerable amount of Shaedenfreude.

_No it's not,_ thought Edward. But he didn't dare say it aloud. This nun clearly had vampire ears grafted over her regular, god-given ones. He held his hands out, palms up. The ruler came down once, twice, three times. Edward remembered just in time to wince as if it hurt, although really it felt no worse than being slapped around by a toddler.

"Now," said Sister Maria-Teresa smugly, turning her back and walking back to the board, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking horribly on the linoleum. "Back to Algebra."

_Poor sap,_ thought mental voices all around him. He tried to shut them out. Vampires could still feel humiliation, even if they didn't mind the sting of a switch.

_I wonder if he's lonely,_ thought a wistful female voice he'd never noticed before. He looked around the room, but all eyes were forward. The backs of all these heads looked pretty much the same: girls in braids and ponytails, buzzcut and wet-combed boys. He listened again for the voice, but whoever it was remained silent.

* * *

That weekend passed in a blur. I was exhausted, yet too restless to nap. I was distracted by thoughts of Edward and vampires, but whenever I tried to focus on that I only ended up feeling stupider than ever. Eventually I managed to settle into finishing my essay for Mr. Banner. It was far from my best writing ever, but it would do.

Then I downloaded Mahler 5 on iTunes and lay on my bed, imagining Edward's voice reciting a love poem in German. That had to mean something, didn't it? He wouldn't do that for a girl he didn't care anything about, surely.

Or would he? The problem was that I didn't have enough information. I knew a few scattered facts about Edward—his age (supposedly), his family situation (assuming that was all true), that he was very, very smart—but I could tell I had only scratched the surface of whatever it was that made him tick. Had he had lots of girlfriends before? No one at Forks, or Jessica would have told me. Besides, of all the Cullens he seemed the most introverted. His sisters always smiled at me in a distant, friendly sort of way when we passed in the hallways. I saw his brother Emmett goofing off with the other seniors. Even Jasper was involved in the school's tiny band.

But Edward? I barely ever saw him speak two words to anyone other than his family. And me, of course.

The thought made me happier than it should.

* * *

It was another week before Edward heard the girl's voice again.

"Have you finished your essay for Sister Stephanine yet?" she asked. Edward looked up from where he was sitting, past the dingy white knee socks and scabbed knees and second-hand pleated skirt and ill-fitting white blouse, into a pair of friendly green eyes swimming in a sea of freckles.

Edward had finished the essay a few hours after it was assigned. It was easy for him: Sister Stephanine taught Recent American History and had demanded three pages on WWI. Aside from the oddness of calling it anything other than the Great War, Edward had had no trouble with it: he'd eagerly read the papers at the time and knew all there was to know about the major battles.

"No," he said, smiling. "You?"

_I wonder if I'm brave enough to ask him for help,_ the girl thought. "I can't seem to get started," she said. "I bet you won't have any trouble with it, though. You always have the answers in class."

Oddly, in two whole months of class, Edward had never once heard the girl referred to by her first name, although from roll-call in the few classes they shared, he knew her surname to be Moore. She never raised her hand and was rarely called on. Edward knew now, hearing both her actual and her mental voice together, why he hadn't been able to identify her before: her out-loud voice was thin and flat, and didn't even remotely match the dreamy, beatific voice in her head.

"It's nothing more than a matter of motivation," he said. "I'm Edward."

"Sally," said the girl, sticking out her hand. Edward looked at it, his mind spinning. Did he dare touch a human? That was something he hadn't done since...well, since that terrible period before Rosalie came to live with them. But Sally was waiting. And although she smelled more than delicious, Edward was reasonably confident that he would be able to keep his perspective. She seemed too nice to eat.

"It's pleasant to finally meet you properly," he said, shaking her hand for the briefest time possible.

_Goodness, he's cold_, thought Sally. _All right, now ask. Just ask him!_

"Would you like to work on our essays together?" Edward asked, sparing her what was obviously a huge struggle. She blinked at him in surprise.

"Oh," she said. "I..."

"Or not," said Edward. "We don't have to."

"I'd love to!" she blurted out. "I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Well, that's settled, then," said Edward. "Could you stay after school for an hour or two? We could work on it in the library."

"Wouldn't Sister Francine shush us?" _I hate Sister Francine_, she thought, remembering the time when the wizened librarian had told her off for ten minutes for wearing a rumpled shirt.

"We could work at it at my house," Edward offered, and then wished he could bite off his own tongue: it didn't seem fair to suddenly bring a human into his family's safe haven without warning.

"Okay," she said, smiling happily. _Mom and Grandmother won't even notice,_ she thought. "Are you far away? I usually ride the bus. My mother doesn't have a car, but as long as it's near enough to walk..."

"Oh, it's pretty far," said Edward. In fact the Cullens never bothered with the bus—too small and enclosed a space, with too many hormonal blood-bags stuffed inside like Spam in a tin. They preferred instead to run to and from school, slowing to a walk when they got close enough to be seen. "My father has a car, and we could drive you home afterward. But won't your parents mind you being late?"

"It's only me and Mom and Grandmother," said Sally, "and they're working most of the time. They won't even be home till after dinner."

"Well, then you should stay for dinner, too," said Edward. Immediately he wanted to kick himself for once again not thinking of his siblings—it was unfair to ask them to pretend to eat in front of a stranger all night. But Sally was always by herself; he usually saw her drifting around the outside of the school cliques, looking dingier than everyone else, lost in her own world. He wanted to do something for her.

"That would be lovely," she said, beaming. The bell rang, signalling the end of lunch, and Sally smiled one last time and departed, her thoughts brighter than before, her mental voice positively glowing.

"Em!" Edward called desperately, spotting his brother across the quad. "Help me! I just invited Sally Moore over to work on homework and have dinner. Don't you have a free period coming up? I need someone to warn Esme. I'm sorry this is so sudden, I wasn't even thinking..."

"Hey, no worries, little brother," said Emmett, slapping Edward heartily on the back. "I'll see to everything. Just make sure you tell Alice and Jasper so they aren't surprised when there's a human wandering around the house."

"Thanks, Emmett," said Edward gratefully. "I owe you one."

* * *

On Monday morning, I woke with glee in my heart. I would be seeing Edward again today! Nothing could possibly dampen my mood. Especially not with the sun beaming so gloriously through the windows of the Thing as I drove to school. Nothing could go wrong on a beautiful day like this!

Except the one thing that could possibly ruin my day: the Cullens were absent from school. _All_ of them. Their table was empty at lunch, and I sat alone at my empty Bio table afterward. I knew it was ridiculous to feel so let down. Edward didn't owe me anything. Just because I had been thinking about him all weekend didn't mean he had been thinking about me. It wasn't as if his life _revolved _around me.

Nothing could pull me out of my grump until Jessica and Angela cornered me after school.

"I know you're not going to the dance for _some_ ridiculous reason," said Jessica, "but you really need to have some girl-time with us. Ange and I are going to Port Angeles tomorrow to look for dresses, and you should come."

"I...should?" I echoed, looking from Jessica to Angela.

"Yep," affirmed Angela. "You should."

"Well...okay, then," I said. "What time are we going?"

"After school," said Jessica. She turned to Angela. "That was easy," she said.

"Yeah," said Angela. "Didn't see that coming." They both grinned saucily at me and left. Was I really _that_ antisocial? I'd gone to the beach with them, hadn't I? I just wasn't big on gossip. I still liked doing fun things. Things like reading and researching stuff on the internet...

Okay, maybe they had a point.

* * *

"You _live_ here?" Sally breathed, taking in her first sight of the sprawling Cullen house. Nestled deep into the greenery of Ithaca, with a wide patio on one side that looked over a sheer drop-off into a fern-filled gorge, it looked like something out of a periodical.

"Mm-hmm," Edward said. "Here, come on in." He held the door for her and noticed how she seemed even shabbier in the middle of such elegant surroundings. But her voice softened and deepened as she talked, gradually coming to match the tone of her thoughts: a golden voice, as golden as the sun.

"I think you must be very happy to live in a place like this," she said, and Edward was impressed that there was not a trace of envy in her mind.

"My mom designed it herself," Edward said proudly.

"She did?" asked Sally, surprised.

"Sure," said Edward. "My dad's at the hospital most of the time, so she wanted something to occupy her time. She loves designing houses. And restoring them. She's designed the last three houses we've lived in. And the one before that was a barn she converted to a house."

"Am I going to get to meet your parents?" Sally asked. Edward was, once again, surprised: Sally, unlike every other teenager he met at school, didn't seem constrained by the usual social limitations. She liked meeting parents; she didn't like gossiping, even when the opportunity presented itself. And, unlike most, she actually said what she thought. After all, Edward would know.

"Sure," said Edward. "Mom?" he called loudly, although he knew his mother had probably heard all of this anyway. "Are you home?"

"Hello, dear," said Esme, appearing under the wide French arch into the living room. _Is this she?_ she thought eagerly. So Emmett had made it home in time to warn Esme. That was good.

"Mom, this is my friend Sally. Is it alright if she works on homework with me? We have an essay due in a few days."

"Of course," said Esme, smiling warmly and taking Sally's hand. "I'm Mrs. Cullen. Are you hungry?"

Bemused, Sally just nodded. _She's__ his mother?_ she thought. _But...how?_

Esme disappeared back into the kitchen, where Edward could clearly hear her banging things around in an attempt to sound like she hadn't already arranged a beautiful spread of fruit, fresh milk, and cookies. Goodness, had she made a batch of cookies just for Sally? She must have worked quickly.

"_That's_ your mother?" Sally asked in a whisper.

_Oooh, here it comes,_ thought Esme from afar. _Be careful, darling._

"She and Carlisle adopted me when I was ten," explained Edward. This was the cover story he and his family had agreed upon, although they'd never yet had call to use it here. "But my birth mother died a long time ago. Esme's my mom now."

_She's so wonderful_, thought Sally. "She's so wonderful," said Sally.

"She really is," agreed Edward. "I would have been thrown into an orphanage straightaway if not for Esme and Carlisle. I owe them everything. I owe them all that's good about me." He said this last more for Esme's sake than for Sally's.

_That's not true, darling,_ thought Esme. "Here you go, kids," she said brightly, sweeping down the two short steps into the living room with a tray. She looked like a picture advertisment in her full skirt and matching pumps; she even had a string of pearls resting on her collarbone. She set the tray on the coffee table and swept right back out of the room. Edward could hear how much she was enjoying playing homemaker; even if he couldn't read minds, he would have noticed the twinkle in her eye as she spun to make her petticoats twirl around her.

"So, World War One," said Sally, helping herself to a cookie. "I've no idea where to start."

"Maybe we could start with the Battle of the Bulge," suggested Edward, "and work backward from there."

* * *

**Let's talk about mind-reading and empathy, shall we? Edward is very open about the disgust he has for human beings, especially teenagers. His main objections seem to be that:**

**1. Sometimes people think mean or unfair things and**

**2. Teenagers don't think and act like fully-matured adults, which is bad...for some reason.**

**I have a problem with this. For one thing, _of course_ teenagers are immature. The definition of "immature" is "not grown up yet". You have to make it through the growing-up part before you can actually _be_ a grown-up. Does he think this stuff is supposed to happen overnight at the age of twelve? My _grandmother_ doesn't think of herself as being done "growing up". Edward is basically looking down on people who are younger than him for being younger than him.**

**For another thing, thinking negative thoughts but doing good things is the sign of a person overpowering their demons. If Jessica has catty thoughts about Bella, but still makes every effort to befriend her, why is Edward fixating on the catty thoughts and not on the impulse that directed her to overcome them and act with kindness instead? He thinks of her as a hypocrite for not liking Bella all the time but acting like she does; he should be thinking of her as a saint for moving beyond the honest negative response that Bella inspires in her.**

**Added to this is the fact that Smeyer apparently thinks that the overwhelming majority of humans think mean things all the time. Hey, maybe _she_ is so catty and mean inside her head that she has no way of knowing the rest of us are usually trying really hard to be fair. I****f Edward heard my inner monologue, he would hear the following:**

**"That fucking bitch just gave me the stink-eye okay calm down she's probably having a rough day maybe her face just looks like that who do you think you are anyway like you never give stink-eyes oh god you're spiraling think of something else UNICORNS ooh I'm hungry," and so on. And if it were canon-Edward, his response would be:**

**"Ugh. Revolting plebeian, with her uninteresting inner life. O how pleased I am that I need never be so low and unattractive, with such base and unworthy thoughts. Can she not see how petty she is? I shall scowl at her, that she may know she must improve herself." Thanks, Edward. You are a paragon of decency and kindness. I'll try to be more like you.**

**Edward makes clear that he has no empathy for his classmates, even though he has unfettered access to their daily inner struggles, their constant battle against their own hormones and the hormones of others, their fears that they will not amount to anything or that they will never feel loved, their anxiety about the messed-up world they are expected to inherit. He hears all that, and his response is still revulsion and disdain?**

**Edward has it backwards. He is more cold-hearted, unjust and sociopathically cruel than even the most villainous teenage human could ever hope to be. **


	12. Port of Angels

**To anyone who needs this reminder: you don't have to read the A/N, and if you read it and wish to disagree with me, please do so civilly. To everyone who _doesn't_ need that reminder, which is most of you: thanks for reading and for all your insightful, awesome comments! I love our talks :)**

* * *

The next day was sunny again. Surely Edward would be at school today. I dressed extra-pretty, in a royal blue boat-neck sweater that made me look like Audrey Hepburn, if Audrey Hepburn'd been more the corn-belt type. I tied my hair back in a chignon and even slipped a thin silver bangle onto my wrist, the most jewelry I was ever willing to wear at one time.

All to no avail. Edward's BMW wasn't in the lot again today, and neither was Rosalie's Mustang. I was beginning to worry I had just imagined his existence, that he wasn't real at all. Oh no, if I went too far down this path I would be questioning my sanity within minutes. I distracted myself by thinking about shopping that night with the girls. Not really my jam, but maybe I would buy myself a new shirt or something.

Jessica followed me home so I could drop off my truck and schoolbooks, and then the three of us sped toward town. Jessica grilled me about Edward for about half the trip, so at least I knew I hadn't just imagined him. But I didn't have any good answers for her: she was convinced that every word he said to me was a sign of his interest, and I was just as convinced that he could get any girl he wanted, so why would he go for me? I turned the conversation over to Mike, and this kept us going for the rest of the car ride.

Port Angeles was a charming tourist trap. Jessica and Angela were used to it, so they steered me past all the boutiques and bistros on the quay, straight toward the one and only department store. Since I wouldn't be going to the dance, I mainly served as a second pair of eyes for the two girls. But they did advise me on a green knee-length wrap dress that would go well with tights in the winter and sandals in the summer. Assuming summer ever came.

After a while, I asked if they would mind my checking out a bookstore I'd seen a few streets away. I recognized the name as one that sold the books I'd looked up on Quileute history, and I was eager to continue indulging my madness. We agreed to meet up for dinner in an hour or so, and I departed.

The bookshop I'd seen was way too hippie-dippy for me to even consider going in, so I started wandering in search of a more normal venue. I crossed the main street and went down a likely-looking road, but it didn't lead anywhere I wanted to go. I turned back and tried another road. The shopping district for this town seemed pretty small; it petered out after a few blocks in any direction.

Eventually, I had to acknowledge I was lost. I had somehow stumbled into a deserted street that seemed to hold the loading docks for a lot of warehouses on the bay. I turned and looked around me. It was a wide street, the kind that big eighteen-wheeler trucks were able to drive down, but it wasn't very well lit, and the sun was gone by this time.

I stumbled over a piece of detritus and almost went sprawling. Then I heard a noise and looked up. In the shadows, not far from me at all, were two men. They were huddled together, talking about something. I tried to back away quietly—I didn't like the look of them, not when I was alone—but of course then I tripped over a curb and went sprawling for real. One of the men started walking toward me. He wasn't moving fast, but it still felt like a threat. I scrambled to my feet and began to walk more rapidly away from them.

"Hey!" shouted the man. His voice sounded rough and shrieky at the same time. "You think my business is your business?"

I ignored him. _Just keep walking,_ I told myself. _Just get out of here_.

"Yo, Betty!" shouted the man, walking faster to match my pace. "You want summa what I got? Cause I got plenty. You can have it for free, if you want. You just go ahead and take whatever you want."

"Come on, man, leave it," said the other man, but the first one didn't seem to be in a listening mood.

"I'm _talking_ to you, Betty!" shouted the first man. "You wanna make my business your business, you gonna get yourself a little accident!"

"Dude, let it go," said the second man, sounding frightened. I got the distinct impression that both men were on drugs. _Lots_ of drugs.

"I'mma let it go when little Bitchy Betty gets her shit out my business," he shouted, and then his footsteps sped up. Panicking, I broke into a run. If I could make it to the end of the street, I could probably find my way out of this maze. As long as I just didn't trip over my own fee—

_Thunk_. I fell hard, barely able to get my hands in front of me to break the fall. The first man had just reached me and begun to grab at my shirt with his unwelcome paws when I heard the sound of a loud engine and squealing brakes. My attacker and I both looked up, startled by the sudden onslaught of high-beams. The man leaped away and I struggled to get my feet under me in time to get out of the way of the car, which was definitely about to hit me.

But at the last second, the car fishtailed around and came to a halt with the passenger side door facing me. It was thrown open, and a voice from within the car commanded furiously, "Get in."

I knew that voice. I knew that car, too, now that I got a good look at it. It was amazing how swiftly the fear-adrenaline drained from my body, to be replaced by a wholly different kind of adrenaline. I threw myself into the car and yanked the door shut behind me, and Edward slammed on the gas to race us safely away before the two men could even react. He was driving way too fast, speeding through stop-signs without so much as a pause. I tried to breathe normally, but the smell of Edward was thick in the car and it made me feel light-headed. This, combined with the speed and the residual fear for my life, made my breath come in short little pants. I gripped the edge of my seat with both hands and tried to focus on the buttery leather, the good Edward-smell, the very low music coming through the speakers—anything to ground myself.

"Are you okay?" I asked him tentatively, trying to read his face. His jaw was set, a muscle flickering furiously in his cheek. His eyes blazed with anger, and his hands on the steering wheel were white-knuckled. At my question, he turned to look at me in angry disbelief.

"Are _you_ alright?" he barked. "Did that man hurt you?"

"No," I said, shrinking away from the boiling ferocity in his eyes. "I mean, no he didn't hurt me. I'm fine." He didn't look like he believed me.

"Will you talk about something to distract me?" he said abruptly.

"Huh?"

"Please, Bella. I am very close to turning around and hunting those men down, and I would rather you not see that. Just talk about anything."

"Um," I said, struggling to think of anything other than how overwhelming Edward was being. "I had a really nice time on the beach last weekend." I settled for a harmless account of a pleasant day. I launched into what I was sure was an airheaded description of the driftwood fire, the multi-hued rocks that made up the beach, how cold it had been but how for once I hadn't minded, and how I had overstuffed myself on marshmallows and been unable to sleep that night. I didn't mention the _real_ reason for my insomnia, which was my niggling suspicion that Edward was a...well, a you-know-what. And I didn't mention Jake. When I had exhausted my memory of that day, I asked, "Is this helping?"

"I can't tell yet," admitted Edward. He turned his glorious pale eyes on me; I was more blinded by those eyes than I'd been by the headlights of his car. "Sometimes I have trouble with my temper," he said in an ashamed whisper. "I just...don't want to hurt anyone."

His words were setting off warning bells in my head. Loud ones. My whole brain was screaming at me to just open the door and make a run for it, speeding car be damned. When a boy you didn't even know showed up out of the blue—really, _how_ had he known I was in that alley? Why was he even in Port Angeles?—swept you off in his car, talked casually of hunting men down and then told you he had problems with his temper...well, you didn't have to be a detective to see where that was going. He'd been trying to tell me all along: I was in danger. I was in danger from _him_.

Except my subconscious wouldn't let me pay attention to my conscious. I knew I should get out of this car right now, but I couldn't seem to tear myself away from his magnetic presence. I was breaking almost every rule of safety I'd formed for myself. And I didn't even care.

"Bella?" Edward asked, looking at me me slantwise. "What are you thinking?"

"I was thinking Jessica and Angela will be worried about me," I lied. No way was he going to hear my _real_ internal monologue. "I was supposed to meet them at Squisito Italia a half hour ago."

Without a word, Edward made an illegal u-turn and sped off toward the Italian restaurant where I'd agreed to meet my friends. He paused beside a parallel parking spot that looked way too small for even his tiny car, but the Beemer slid smoothly into the spot in one try. I heard a door open and close, and then suddenly Edward was opening _my _door for me, holding it wide. Flustered, I got out of the car and looked toward the restaurant.

"Bella!" shouted Jessica, rushing toward me with Angela on her heels. "Oh my god, Bella, we thought you got hit by a car or something, where have you—" Then her eyes suddenly registered who I was standing with—whose car I was stepping out of—and all the worry in her face was replaced by arch amusement. "I see I didn't need to worry," she said pointedly.

"Hello, Jessica, Angela," said Edward politely, inclining his head a few degrees.

"Hi, Edward," said Angela cheerfully. Jessica seemed dumbstruck this close to Edward; well, I could certainly understand that.

"I got lost," I said weakly.

"I happened to be in town," said Edward, "so I gave her a lift. Do you ladies mind if I steal Bella for a while? We need to make up a lab, and I don't know when else we'll be able to discuss it. I'll drive her back to Forks, you don't have to wait around or anything."

"You need to make up a lab," repeated Jessica, amused. 'Well, go ahead. Who are we to stand in the way of chemistry?"

"It's for Bio," I said, blushing.

"Oh, silly me," laughed Jessica."Come on, Angela." Jessica pulled Angela into the restaurant, both of them shooting us backward glances the whole way.

"What just happened?" I asked dazedly.

"Come on," said Edward, "I'm taking you to dinner."

"To...talk about our lab?" I asked, my brain moving pathetically slow as it always did this close to Edward.

"No, Bella," he said, and for the first time all night there was actually a smile around his eyes. "Just to talk."

"Oh," I said. "Okay."

Edward led me to a restaurant around the corner—likewise Italian, although this one looked a lot more upscale than the other one. I actually felt underdressed. Edward looked right at home, though, in his dark slim pants and gray wool jacket. It was really unfair for him to be so beautiful.

The restaurant was quiet and private-feeling inside; we were a little early for the dinner rush, or perhaps it just wasn't the season for that. At any rate, before long we were seated at a small table in a shadowy corner, looking shyly at each other in the rosy glow of a wall-lamp. After a moment, our server came to the table, pad in hand. I could instantly read the looks she cast over Edward, and wished for the gazillionth time that I had boobs or better hair or _something_.

"What can I get you?" she asked Edward, ignoring me entirely.

"Just water with lemon," he said without looking at her. Reluctantly, she turned to me. There was an appraising look in her expertly-made-up eyes, like she knew I wasn't a threat.

"Oh, um..." I faltered. I said the first thing my eyes landed on in the menu—pasta fagioli—and water with lemon. "Aren't you hungry?" I asked Edward as the woman sashayed away.

"I just ate," he said. He seemed to be suppressing laughter.

The server returned with our water, a basket of different types of bread, and a bowl of herbed olive oil for dipping. I wasn't planning to eat if Edward wasn't—that would be _way_ too awkward for words—but then he nudged the bread and oil toward me and I suddenly realized how hungry I was. Maybe it was shock settling in. Or maybe it was just that I hadn't eaten since lunch. I helped myself to a piece of crusty brown bread, dunking it in the oil and then trying to eat it without making a sloppy mess of myself. Of course Edward watched the whole thing. And of course it didn't occur to me to ask him to look elsewhere.

I downed about half my water in one gulp, giving myself brain freeze. I shivered against the icy feeling spreading through my chest.

"What's wrong?" asked Edward, instantly concerned. "Are you cold?"

"It's just the water," I said. "I left my coat in Jessica's car."

"Here, take mine," he said, sliding smoothly out of his jacket. He passed it to me over the table and I snuggled gratefully down into its Edward-scented folds. It wasn't warm from his body—it actually felt _colder_ than the air in the restaurant—but I felt better just the same. Especially seeing what he was wearing underneath, a crisp, expensive-looking white button-down with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. I _loved_ when guys did that. And Edward had such sexy forearms.

"That blue looks pretty on you," he said. I blushed, sure that he was just being nice, but he was looking at me much the same way I was looking at him. Then he shook his head a little, like he was trying to clear his ears of water, and nudged the bread basket toward me again. "Eat," he commanded. "I don't want you going into shock."

"Why would I go into shock?" I asked. Edward stared at me disbelievingly, and I suddenly remembered the _reason_ I was sitting here in a fancy restaurant with Edward Cullen. I'd been set upon by a violent stranger in a dark alley in a town I didn't know. "Oh, right," I muttered. "Well, don't worry, I am a champion repressor of unpleasant things. I can repress all week long and twice on Sundays. No worries there." What the hell was I talking about, again? I couldn't think, not while I was staring into Edward's beautiful, pale-golden eyes.

"I wish I understood you, Bella," Edward sighed, looking away. Released from the spell of his gaze, I was free to realize just what an idiot I was being. _I_ wished I understood me, too. "I can never get a read on you," he said, and he sounded frustrated, the way he often did around me. Like there was something he wanted from me that I was unable to give.

"Usually when your eyes are this light," I said, popping a soft chunk of bread in my mouth, "you're a little less morose."

"Pardon?"

"Well," I went on, looking very hard at my bread so I could get a complete thought out of my mouth without it going off the rails, "I've noticed that usually when you're mad at me, your eyes are darker, and when you're in a good mood, they're lighter. Are your contacts prescription?" I chanced a peek up at him, and was surprised to see he actually _did_ look angry at my words.

"I'm never mad at you, Bella," he said tensely. "I've never been mad at you."

"Um, you're mad at me right now," I pointed out.

"I'm not," he argued. "I'm mad at myself. I'm really not used to having to work so hard to understand someone." Great, he thought I was stupid as well as clumsy.

"I'm not hard to understand," I said, needled by his words. "I'm pretty consistent, actually. _You're_ the one who keeps changing. And if you don't like spending time with me, no one's going to force you. I'm sorry if my level of conversation isn't up there in the clouds with you." I immediately regretted my words, because the tense look fell from his face to be replaced by a look of hurt confusion.

"I like spending time with you," he said quietly. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that usually I can figure out what people are thinking. I never know what you're thinking about."

"That makes two of us," I mumbled.

"You never know what you're thinking about, either?" he said teasingly, and when I glanced up again he was looking into my eyes appeasingly. I laughed.

"My thoughts haven't been making any sense lately," I said. "I think I'm losing my mind. I've been entertaining way too many irrational theories."

"Theories about what?"

"Well..." I paused. "About you, actually." He looked wary again.

"Oh, we're back to that, are we?" he asked, forcing an unconvincing lightness into his voice. "And what, pray tell, has been your success?"

"Not sure." The server returned with my food, and I used this to derail the conversation before Edward could dazzle me into spilling about my ridiculous web searches.

It didn't work, though. Watching me take a bite of beans and pasta, Edward said, "So, what are your new theories? Am I to expect more comic-book fun?"

I shook my head. "No comic books," I said. "But it's not very original, either. A friend told me about it." He lifted one eyebrow, waiting for an explanation. I sighed and said, "I'll tell you on the way home." In the car, where I wouldn't have to look him in the eye. "But only if you answer some of my questions, first. I don't want to be the only one talking."

"Fair enough," he said. "What do you want to know?"

"What are you doing in Port Angeles?"

"Having dinner with my friend from school," he said automatically.

"That's a lie," I said. "You're _watching_ your friend eat dinner. That's not the same thing at all. And I want to know why you came here in the first place."

"Well, you can't," he said firmly. "Next question."

"Fine," I said, annoyed. "Well, how did you know to find me in that alleyway? _I_ didn't even know where I was!" When he looked cagey again, I put a little extra wheedling in my voice. "You can trust me, you know," I said encouragingly. "I promise."

"Why do I believe you?" he said helplessly. "You're the one person on earth who can lie to me, and I still believe you." I stored that weird little tidbit away for digestion later, and waited patiently for him to finish. "Okay," he said. "You're going to hate me in a minute, but maybe that's for the best. I'm in Port Angeles because I followed you here."

He looked at me shamefaced, waiting for me to get as outraged as I knew I _ought_ to get. But the outrage I was expecting didn't come. That right there should have tipped me off to how out-of-alignment my sense of self-preservation was, but I didn't care.

"You followed me?" I said quietly.

"I'm sorry," he said in a rush. "I know, it's really creepy and wrong. I'm sorry, Bella. But trouble follows you around like a stray cat. I was sure that if you were out of sight, something terrible would happen to you."

"Trouble follows me," I repeated. He nodded, staring at me with anxious, unblinking eyes, like he was waiting for me to pass judgment. But all I could think to say was, "_You_ followed me."

He caught my drift and lowered his eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "I told you before, I'm not a good friend for you."

"Except you are," I pointed out. "You've saved my life twice now. Haven't you considered maybe my ticket was up the first time when the van almost hit me? Maybe there's no point in prolonging the inevitable."

"The accident wasn't the first time your number was up," Edward said shortly, sounding angry again. "You have no idea how much danger you were in, the first time we sat together in Bio."

"Then tell me how much danger I was in," I insisted. "You keep on saying all these cryptic things that are practically _designed_ to keep a girl like me interested in you. If you really wanted me to leave you alone, you would just tell me you're gay, or that you still wet the bed. Or you could do the unthinkable, and tell me what's _really going on_. But the one thing you _don't_ get to do is look at me with those big sad eyes, tell me you're too mysterious and dangerous and that I must save myself from you, and then act like it's my fault for being curious." I folded my arms across my chest and glared at him sulkily.

He looked at me for a beat and then a slow smile crept across his features, warming them immeasurably. "You're right," he said at length. "I don't think I'm the problem at all. I think _you're_ the dangerous one. You see right through me every time."

Hah. _I_ saw through _him?_ If he'd known just how absurd my thoughts were getting these days, he would run in the other direction and never look back.

"Bella?" he asked. I raised my eyebrows. "Would you like to get out of here? I can't believe I'm about to put myself through this, but I think I'm ready to hear some of those theories of yours."

I stood up at once, knocking my chair backward with a clatter. "Oops," I said.

"I'll get that," said Edward. He picked up my chair, left what looked like an obscene amount of cash on the table, and led me back to his car.

"Okay," he said, once we were both strapped in and the car was on the road. "Hit me."

Faced with the prospect of actually owning up to my odd ideas, I almost chickened out. I only managed to speak by not looking at him; instead, I focused very firmly on my hands, folded in my lap.

"Well," I said, "I was talking to my friend from the rez, and he was telling me all these old stories. I could tell he didn't believe them, but they got me wondering." I chanced a peek and saw that Edward's knuckles were white and straining once again, and so I looked quickly back down at my intertwined fingers. Might as well get it all out at once. "He was talking about a family that used to live here a long time ago, when his great-grandpa was alive. A family of...of..." I couldn't bring myself to finish.

"Say it, Bella," said Edward quietly. "Go on. Say it."

"Vampires," I whispered. "A family who never ages, who signed a treaty with the Quileutes..." This time when I looked up, Edward's eyes were squeezed closed. I gasped and grabbed the steering wheel, but we didn't seem to be in any danger of veering out of our lane. At the sound of my gasp, however, Edward's eyes snapped open again.

"And you believe him." It wasn't a question.

"Should I?" I asked.

"_Yes_."

* * *

**This is the second half of my criticism of Smeyer's use of rape in her stories, the first half of which can be found in the A/N to chapter 5. Fair warning: this note is about rape and may be a trigger to some. If you need to skip this A/N, then do so.**

**In _Midnight Sun_ Smeyer informs us that one of the men who endangers Bella in Port Angeles is a "serial rapist and killer", making this one of two major rape-related devices for character development: Bella's and Rosalie's.**

**Now, Rosalie's rape was at the hands of people she knew, which is, statistically, the most common scenario by a long shot. Bella is targeted by a stranger in a dark alley in a small town. While of course that does happen sometimes, I cannot read this chapter without also thinking of everything else Smeyer tells us about Bella, almost all of which revolves around her supreme sexual desirability. (Examples of what I mean: even though she is oh-so-average, all the boys still totally want to bone her, especially boys who exhibit high mate status such as the excruciatingly attractive and wealthy Edward, Jacob with his primal physique, and even the popular Tyler Crowley. To really drive home the point, all the girls hate her for being more attractive than they are.) Because Bella's sexy specialness is so overwhelmingly the focus throughout the rest of the series, it is rational to conclude that Smeyer is using the (attempted) rape episode as a device to reinforce that Bella is the sexiest morsel in all the land, and she _doesn't even have to try!_ I also can't help but notice that while Rosalie's rape occurs at the hands of a man she worked hard to convince of her sexual desirability, Bella's happens at the hands of a total stranger in a dark alley. Taken with the unsympathetic light in which the "vain" Rosalie is cast throughout the series, and the way Bella's self-loathing is romanticized and glorified, this indicates that Bella must have deserved it less—hey, she didn't even know the guy! And she wasn't dressed immodestly or anything! (I am reminded of the supremely sexy Heidi, whom Smeyer literally describes as "bait".) The perfect victim, Bella is totally above reproach. She is, in effect, the poster girl for victim-blaming—the only sort of victim who can't possibly be blamed, the standard to which girls who flirt, wear revealing clothes, or get drunk at parties will never measure up.**

**Now, I'm certainly not saying that it is impossible for a young girl to be accosted by a serial rapist in a dark alley in a small town. But this is a novel, which means that each element of the story must be considered along with every other element; to only consider incidents in isolation from each other is to assume that the writer is a hack who has no idea how to craft a narrative. Altogether, Smeyer spills a lot of ink about rape, a woman's role in her own sexual life, a woman's responsibility to be desirable but not to _know or believe_ she is desirable, and the social and physical punishments/judgments a woman has coming to her if she breaks that golden rule. In Smeyer's world, Bella deserves more sympathy for her near-rape experience than Rosalie does for her actual-rape, because unlike Rosalie she's careful never to make herself appear too desirable. In fact, she goes so far as to disbelieve the overwhelming evidence that she _is_ desirable, because believing that you are hot shit is a moral line no woman in Smeyerland should ever cross, and anything that happens to you after you cross that line is at least partially your fault. Instead of telling us directly that Bella is a beautiful, sensual young woman who embraces her sexuality, Smeyer feels the need to make Bella arbitrarily hate herself and then have everyone _else_ tell us how sexy she is. And Smeyer clearly thinks that one good way of getting that message across is by having even total strangers want to have their way with Bella. In _MS_, even the serial rapist dwells on how special and unique Bella is****—and he's raped a lot of girls, so he would know. (What the hell, Smeyer?!)**

**To quote _Community's _Jeff Winger's assessment of the _Twilight_ series' "insipid central metaphor": "Men are monsters who crave young flesh." ****To which I might add, "And girls, make sure you don't do _anything_ to deserve it."**


End file.
